


Walk This Way

by PrincessLiamer



Category: South Park
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 02:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13225899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessLiamer/pseuds/PrincessLiamer
Summary: To everyone whose actually reading this, I do not proofread, and I'm sorry for the problems that entails





	1. Chapter 1

Three men sat around in an empty coffee shop. Light only came from within the shop, as the lateness of the hour could be seen in the darkness on the other side of the wall made up of a majority of glass. From within the walls, one of the men wearing a tattered orange hoodie glared up to a clock from where he sat, slumped back in one of the tall chairs you only see in coffee shops, since only coffee shops haven’t yet figured out it’s not comfortable to not be able to reach the ground with your feet(or is it that they have figured this out and it’s some sort of power move by cafes nationwide, since they know you won’t be bringing your own chairs, and they’re calling the shots on whether you’re comfortable or not)  
“It’s almost two,” the boy in the orange hood stated, one foot resting on the countertop, pushing his chair to rest against the wall. Resting against the wall by his side was a banjo, and of all the objects he’d brought with him, from the boots on his feet to the pale beat up face he’d let people walk over if he knew them well enough, it was the only one the average joe would find pleasant to look at. “You guys think it might be wise to head home, yet?”  
“What, you getting tired, Kenny?” The young boy sitting across from him mocked with a smirk. This young man was near converse that of his friend, from his pointed, black leather cowboy boots to his well-groomed hair, complimenting his soft, brown face, speckled with freckles below his eyes of blue.  
“No, I just thought it’d be courteous to ask. Who knows, maybe some of us might have a family to get back to, David,” Kenny sneered back at his friend pulling off the hood that hid his face. There were two teeth missing from his smile and one black eye, which muddied up their brilliant green. He also had a deep scar through his right cheek and part of his left ear missing, and his blonde hair had a section that might’ve been torn out a month before and was only now growing back, so the whole mess looked very patchy.  
“My family knows I’m out with friends after work, they shouldn’t be all that worried,” David gave as a quick explanation with a flick of the wrist, extending his hand towards his chest. On the table at which David sat behind in his overly tall chair which he sat in backward because he’s such a cool guy, was a Spanish guitar garnished with flowers turning to the curves of the instrument.  
“They’re not gonna care you’re coming in with the light of day?” Kenny retorts, playfully.  
“Hey, it isn’t a school night, now is it?”  
From behind the counter of the coffee shop, with the sound of a cup being filled came the calling of the last member of the trio, “No qualms over here, either. This is the best respite I get from my parents.”  
Kenny gave a snicker, “Really? You sure it isn’t Craig, and the, uh,” Kenny finished his statement struggling to raise his body off his seat with his hands, his chair teetering only slightly, to give a slight raising and lowering of his hips, making a sound like a squeaky door. To that, David threw a paper ninja star at Kenny, smacking him in the arm, to which Kenny gave a yelp of pain, “The fuck?”  
“You know what,” David warns Kenny with a glare and a smirk, “don’t be a prying dick.” David lifts a bag of potato chips he holds with two fingers of his left hand and starts pulling out chips to chomp on with his right.  
“Where are you getting these ninja stars?” Kenny asks, gesturing at the ground, where three ninja stars have fallen after being cast out. David licks the barbecue dust from his fingers and lifts his bag, resting upon the ground, laying his bag of chips in another chair at his table and reaching in to pull out an exemplary kept, hard pencil case which David opens to reveal a sizeable collection of perfect paper throwing stars. Shock visible across Kenny's face, he asks the question, “How have you been getting those out of your bag without me seeing?”  
With a twist of one end of his bushy brows up, “Because I am the reincarnation of the mystical ninja Goemon, you fool,” David answered so plain and quick as if it were common knowledge, and kept going, “Now don’t pester Tweek about his love life.”  
“Wha-” Kenny pushed himself off the wall, his chair locking onto four legs, and he tossed an open palm to the air in the direction in which his third party member walked out from behind the counter with three mugs on a tray, “Tweek, you know I only mean the best? We’re all good friends here, right?”  
The boy named Tweek walked up to Kenny, resting a cup on the table he held to himself next to his personal ashtray and then quickly walked away. The cup was made just to Kenny’s liking, destroyed with four packets of sugar and watered down with two ice cubes to make it cool to drink. David’s had one sugar packet mixed in, along with one of the cream cups and some honey, and made his way back behind the counter, upon which he placed his carrying tray, along with his own coffee, resting it to his personal ashtray. Tweek turned to sit at his instrument of choice, a laptop, and stated: “Kenny, i-if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to just get back to practice.”  
Tweek’s tone was nervous and dismissive, and to hear it said caused David and Kenny to look to one another for a mental conjecture before returning to Tweek, “I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean to hit the nail there.” Kenny tried to console, for which he got another ninja star from David, his apparent keeper.  
“What he means is we didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”  
“No, no. It, it’s fine. You guys aren’t at all a problem. Trust me.” Tweek gave a sigh as he slouched in his chair, a regular chair at that, his work apron still on, one big coffee stain marring it from a failed attempt to sip, dripping from his green button up to his apron. A pale hand reached up to his scalp and found Light blonde hairs to tug and twist at to try and knead the anxiety away before his hand pulled through the tangled hairs down to his muscular shoulder. If you were to line Tweek, David, and Kenny up, both would outclass Tweek in height by a few inches each, David peering two above Kenny, but Tweek had the build like Little Mac, especially after the years of training as an amateur boxer. There was even a poster of Tweek hung on the walls of the Tweek Bros coffee store in which they resided of Tweek bringing home the lightweight championship belt, the photo to go with it highlighting the extreme aggression Tweek gets, flaring in his green and brown heterochromic eyes to show at competitions as he punches some poor girl’s lights and teeth out.  
Kenny chimed back into the conversation, “Tweek, if there’s something going on between you and Craig, we’re all ears if you need it.”  
“Right. And we promise, if you do, nothing you say has to leave this room,” David added, noticeably leering at Kenny out of the corner of his eye.  
“Nah, Nah, it’s… I just wanna keep playing, for now, okay?” Tweek threw both hands in the air, palms towards his friends, and pushing back against the questions.  
David gave a nod, “Alright, no problem.” And with that, he took a baby sip of his coffee and picked back up his instrument.  
Kenny looked back from one friend to the other. “Wha, come on, really? Tweek, we just wanna help-”  
David snapped his head up from his instrument to Kenny, “Kenny, do you want a ninja star to the eye? Or do you want us to press into your love life?”  
Kenny took but a moment to consider his options, blankly staring ahead of him, before taking a deep inhale, “Fair enough,” and got out of his chair adjusting himself away from the table, coffee in hand, chugging it down, fast and placing it back on the table. He then carefully grabbed up his special banjo, giving a caress down the back of its especially long neck all the way to the stoop before placing his fingers on the four strings and making their way back up to a comfortable resting position, repeatedly and gently tapping his fingers against the strings, picking up his pick, which was on a separate table with the banjo carrying case. “How many drafts we got for this latest beat ya got?” Kenny asked, his banjo now securely strapped on, giving it a little swivel as he held it closed to his pelvis.  
“We’ve got two pretty solid drafts for this one, overall,” Tweek stated as he flipped through a notebook on the desk Even if we don’t use any of these, these are all some pretty good lyrics, be good to keep them for later if we don’t use them. But honestly, I don’t know if there’s something better coming.”  
“Well there better be if we’re looking to create our magnum opus of four years of work in an overall piece of shit album.” Kenny reminded the two of his friends. “We were lucky enough to maintain our beautiful singing voices after our collective balls dropped, that’s the kind of gift Michael Jackson could only achieve surgically.”  
“First off, Michael Jackson getting his testicles removed to maintain his effeminate singing voice was only a rumor,” David made a point of, “And secondly, I don’t know what you’re going on about this ‘we’, I haven’t gotten shit done this evening,” he then finished with personal complaints.  
“What are you talking about?” Kenny questioned his friends logic, taking a half-finished cigarette from his bowl and lighting it back up. “You’ve almost got a sheet done for your guitar. You don’t need to feel rushed. This isn’t supposed to be a big serious thing, remember?”  
“Right, right. Sorry.” David lightly strummed at the chords of his guitar looking over what he did have. He went over his notes in his head and then with his fingers.  
“A-Are you sure we have time?” Tweek started questioning himself, a cigarette half burnt away between his lips. “The battle of the bands is coming up soon, and-”  
“And we have three songs done, and a two and a half songs in front of us, ready to be turned into one amazing song,” Kenny tried reaffirming his friends in their efforts. We’ll be done with this one in a week, and we’ll have more than enough time to work on one more before the battle of the bands. That’ll be five songs, and one helluvan EP!” Kenny clenched his fist with excitement at the thought of his success and the praise of his peers in awe of his hidden talents. “C’mon, guys. Let’s listen to the track one more time. And then a half dozen more times in broken up fragments. Tweek?” Kenny turned to his friend at the counter, nervously scratching at his tense forearm. He then looked down at his laptop. A bar of soundbites glowed upon his face, just waiting to be played. Tweek tentatively hit the play button, and what followed was the sweet cacophony of Tweek’s masterful piano playing done over two different pianos intertwined and intercut to create the starting template upon which the “One Dark Eyes” (name subject to change, a discussion for before they drop their first EP) may create their next song together.  
Tweek had finished this portion of the song one night twice weeks ago in the music room of his high school when he was fortunate enough to get to make use of the pianos there. It was a night when for four hours, he went insane, completely unchecked, Craig watching him work in mystified awe. He recorded them all, cut it down to a total of five minutes, and then brought it to Kenny and David, his technical bandmates. And since then, twice a week, the three of them have listened to the piano, and dissected the work to create a theme, add drums, courtesy of Kenny, lyrics, the main work of Tweek and Kenny, Tweek being the expected singer of this song, and the final missing piece being the string instruments, with which David was currently struggling.  
It wasn’t standard for Tweek to make the band’s piano pieces first. Nor was it standard for David to struggle so with making music with his guitar. In fact, with the band of David Tweek and Kenny, nothing was standard. Not even a name. Within four years, they’d taken up six. But how did this all begin? I’m going to tell you right now because I want to. And that’s why I asked the question, in case you were questioning the presence of a question, which if you were, then I’ll be damned, do me a favor and don’t think about thinking about, but be sure to think about not thinking about. ANYWAY!!!

It was a day like any other, as long as those other days were also school days. Right after the final bell, David was watching from a floor above the doors with a tantalizing excellent view of the buses below He could even spot the tuft of red hair in the crowd symbolic of Kyle by the side of Stan, Bebe and Wendy, all of them heading for a bus he wished he could be on. And for a moment he saw Kyle stop in the pushing of children making their way for the buses, and eyes growing a bit wider, saw Kyle searching the area for what normally made a fifth member of the regular bus group. He hoped to see Kyle look up towards him, but he’d stopped but a moment before Stan called for him to catch up, and he hurried along.  
With a sigh, David turned around to the detention room filled with but five, a tired looking teacher, David, and Kenny, Craig, and Tweek. David was surprised to be familiar with everyone in the, except perhaps the teacher, but that didn’t matter much, because, after five minutes, the teacher announced, “I’m going to fuck a duck, don’t go anywhere and don’t talk, at all, just sit there and work diligently until I get back in twenty minutes.”  
You may be asking yourself, why would a teacher fuck a duck? Because that teacher is a duck fucker, let me tell, as the narrator, a totally normal narrator, at that, Mr. Crawford at Orange County High School is a duck fucker. So he leaves the room for twenty minutes to go fuck a duck, leaving the room with just the four of them. And it was Kenny to decide to break the tension, for as the teacher left, almost immediately with the slam of the door, he turned to Tweek and Craig and asked, “So, what are you guys in here for?”  
Tweek recoiled, tossing his hands over his head, “Oh Jesus, why do you have to ask!?”  
“Because if it were anyone else but just you two,I would know it wasn’t something weird,” Kenny explained before immediately backing up, “I mean, not… not weird, We are still in South Park. Err, adjacent to the county line, in a building containing a large percentage of… I’m asking you because I’m imagining you two got caught fucking somewhere,” he finally brought his rambling to an end.  
“We did not get caught fucking,” Craig quickly deflected the accusation, remaining cool and levelheaded. The juxtaposition felt between Craig and Tweek could be seen best in the way the two of them held themselves at that moment, Tweek leaned forward with his hands on his head pulling it closer to the table, a foot tapping against the ground, the other bobbing its heel up and down at a different rhythm, Craig’s lanky body stretched out over nearly three desks, his hands in his pockets and eyes fixated on the ceiling above, with his long legs over the chair in front of him, which, notably, his legs might’ve been twice the size of Tweek’s. He had hair jet black all matted down, yet brilliantly silky, His skin being dark brown like a chestnut, and during this particular time, covered with similar blemishes due to acne. His wasn’t as bad as Tweek’s, and Kenny’s was as bad as them combined. David was the fortunate son with nice clean skin that was well maintained.  
“Alright, then what did you do?” Kenny restated his question.  
“W-W-Why don’t you ask David!?” Tweek quickly tried to deflect the question. “He’s a straight-A student, probably, isn’t it a bit stranger to see him in here!?”  
“The oddity of him in here doesn’t translate to a good story, the knowledge that you two do weird shit on the regular means that there’s a good story, here.”  
“Wait, are you calling me boring?” David was quick to chime in at that. Kenny seemed exhausted by the effort to turn and face him. In recent years, David had replaced Kenny in his group of friends, as Kenny spent less and less time with Stan and Kyle, and David was spending more and more. As a result, Kenny thought David was a dick.  
“Yes. I am, David.” And with that, he turned away from him, assertively done with the whole conversation.  
For a time, Kenny tried to engage Craig and Tweek in conversation, but with time, they both grew bored with it. Tweek became further irritated, scratching at their sleeve, “C’mon, C’mooon,” they begged for time to flow, “I’ve gotta be working my family store, right now!” Craig gave a sympathetic rub to Tweek’s shoulder, more than prepared to try and soothe him.  
“Psh, don’t I know it,” David was quick to toss his hat in on that. “Nueva Familia’s probably falling apart without me, there.”  
Tweek gave a glance over to David’s statement, “Are you the one running your family business, too?”  
David had made his comment out of the side of his conscious, same as Tweek couldn’t help but complain, so at the direct question, he turned his head to face Tweek with a tilt of the neck, “I mean, no. Not entirely. My parents don’t have the best English. or at least my father, my mother has a good grasp of English, but it’s her second language still, so I have to be there to pick up the slack.” David tapped his pencil along the table as he spoke, “I deal with a lot of the customers, working the front counter and serving, and they do most of the cooking, but you have to help where you can,” He gave an illustrative swing of the pencil, “I do things like the bills, and writing to town council on the family’s behalf when they’re trying to undercut us with their fucking tax hikes on small business bullshit last year!” David clenched the pencil with an aggravated flashback to the small towns attempts to appeal to “new” businesses entering the town, when really it was trying to sweep small business out of the way for chain stores to take their place.  
Tweek turned his body to engage the conversation, and suddenly, Kenny was sandwiched into the conversation. Craig was completely blocked from the topic of discussion but was more than ready to watch this conversation run its course for a minute. “I remember that tax bill! There were, like, thirty people at that town hall meeting that day, and my dad had brought me, though I didn’t really know what was going on. I’m not exactly clear on politics, but I’m surprised I didn’t see you there. I would have more than enjoyed the company, I hated being there with a bunch of strange older people, all alone! But honestly, with my parents, we kind of have an opposite role. I’m the one going into the store super early to make all the baked goods around maybe five AM for their seven AM opening. They don’t even wake me up, I get up in the morning, put on a pot of coffee, and walk to work. I get that done before school, and then I’m in after school, too, back to the front counter until closing!”  
“Well, you’re both at a family business,” Kenny at last tosses his hat into the conversation, ready to toss his two cents in. “I’m the biggest breadwinner in my family.” Kenny leaned forward in his seat, a pencil tight in the grips of his hands, “My mom at least got back to work after middle school.” He gave a roll of his eyes, “on and off. But with half the family running off, brother running in when he feels, I’m now working every night. I mean, I make sure my shift doesn’t start until after detention, but it’s all late nights, all the time.”  
“Yeah, I feel you on that one,” David offered his sympathies to Kenny, who wasn’t quick to return them, before David picked up what he was leaving, “I’m hoping things are gonna be different now that we’re in high school, cause middle school was one of the worst times to be working, especially with growing stresses like my baby sister meaning my mom was out more and more for almost two whole years, and my cousin moving in, a whole mess with her parents-”  
Kenny cut him off with a point of his finger towards David’s face, “Was that that New Years raid!? Your cousins were in that apartment in Orange County!?”  
David sighed,”Yeah, the whole apartment structure got taken down.”  
Kenny gasped, “Yo, when my brother took off, I think the second time when he was gone for a solid two months, it turned out he was there during that raid! He’d been living in the cheap housing while selling pot in town, he spent a week in jail cause of that, till we could bail him out, or moreso had to. After that, he stuck around for maybe another two months, but ever since, he’s only stopped in for the occasional roost. Course I still don’t see him, cause of work and his refusal to come out of his room when he does come home.”  
“Eh.” Craig finally tried engaging with the rest in conversation. “My sister can be kind of a bitch, sometimes.”  
Tweek laid a hand on Craig’s arm, “Craig, you love your sister.”  
Craig gave a sigh, “Yeah, I just wanted to be involved. I mean, my dad’s a dirty cheat who got kicked out, but that’s pretty common around here.”  
“You don’t need to compare the state of your family to ours,” Tweek told his boyfriend. “Be happy in the mundane nature of your suburban family. Your parents have never tried putting you on weird, useless pills or attempted to abandon you.”  
“Your parents tried abandoning you?” David questioned.  
“Mine, too!” Kenny exclaimed. “Although when I get back, it was to a house equally abandoned.” The furthering conversation of family, finance and childhood labor seemed to bind the three oddities of South Park in a way unique to their experiences growing up. It was from this time that the three formed their own group of friends, the underaged workers union. Kenny tried bringing some of his other friends from work, but they weren’t interested, unfortunately. Meetings would generally be held after their collective works got out, which would be around midnight at Tweek Bros, the only shop at which one of them practically ran the store. After a time, they grew to know each other quite closely. They each might even invite guests every scant evening, Craig being the most frequent, the rest of the Craig friend group showing up for the odd ended late night party.  
Though they shared in their hours of work, what came to be the glue holding this union together was a shared love of music. The speakers of the coffee shop offered an excellent venue to listen to albums while the three spent time growing closer, getting to know one another in a platonic manner, none of them floating the idea of a threeway in the coffee shop ever. And none of them ever thought about doing such. Definitely not Kenny, I, narrator, know this for certain, as an anonymous third party. Got distracted, what grew out of this shared interest in music was the realization that the three of them might have had the three best singing voices in the town of South Park. Together, they could sing like a band of Prince, Bowie and Freddie Mercury, each taking one of those respective singers gloriously large ranges with the same majestic vocal tones. The kind of musical talent Disney channel would ruin a child star’s life over. And through their union, along with each of their interest in music having fortuitously brought to the table two instruments each, three from David, they formed a musical trio emboldened by their skills.  
Meetings of the triad quickly moved from listening to music and talking about it to making music. And though they started out no more than amateurs, with time, practice and outside training, the three of them became skilled with at their trades: Tweek at all manner of keys and his longtime school instrument, the cello, eventually learning to use an online mixer out of necessity; Kenny with the banjo and drums, the bass guitar being learned through its similarity to the banjo; and David, with the guitars, electric and acoustic, in addition to playing violin in school and harmonica for fun. The three created a veritable band between the three, albeit their instruments adding up to maybe a folk band, but more than ready to take on any genre, each having a personal preference.

Time quickly melted over three years; Kenny was expelled from High school in his sophomore year for smashing a rock over Eric Cartman’s head and putting him in the hopsital, Tweek’s parents left for eight months and Tweek only told six people about it, David’s little sister got real sick once when she was four and spent two nights in the hosoptial, and through each other’s hardships, Tweek, Kenny and David all stuck with each other, David giving Kenny a better paying job at Nueva Familia, everyone pitching in to help Tweek keep Tweek Brothers from going under, finding out Mr. Tweak had a brother no one knew about, Kenny drafting up a fake will of his, faking Travis Tweak’s death, signing over ownership rights to Tweek, David teaching him how to do his own taxes and then helping him move his stuff into the back of the coffee shop, the both of them, along with Craig, fighting off Mr. Tweak upon his returnal, Craig and Kenny physically, David with evidence of health code and human rights violations against his customers and employees a.k.a. Tweek, Eventually forcing Mr. Tweak to flee town, Kenny and Craig helping Tweek rent his house on the down low, a whole series of adventures we’re not gonna get into right now, but if anyone actually cares to hear about it, will be kept going, maybe I’ll even include some more flashes to the future. but in the end, time did bring the three of them to the evening at which we began, this particular evening being the average for the gang, the hours melting away till the clock finally read three thirty.  
What progress that had been made in the additional hour and a half was not much, and it left David feeling depressed. More depressed than he must have been at the start of the hour. But it was late, and Kenny was about to fall asleep, a cigarette hanging from his mouth barely being breathed alive. He took a deep breath through his nose, but smoke burned his nostrils, and he was coughed till he was awake, again. He looked to his two friends dreary eyed and finally announced, “Alright, I’m tired.”  
Kenny’s friends looked up from their work. Tweek raised his eyebrows at him, “Really? Already?”  
“Yeah, it was a busy day at work,” David jumped to Kenny’s side, wanting to get away from the stressful moment of being unable to write, tonight.  
Tweek look from one friend to the other with surprise. He gave a sigh, “Alright. I guess, i-if both of you want to go home, I can’t keep you guys.”  
“Thanks, Tweek,” Kenny said. “I appreciate it.” Kenny quickly got his things together, hopping off his high stool and carefully placing his instrument back in its case. David was staring at Kenny, shaking his head to himself, reaching into his backpack before zipping it up.  
“Text me tomorrow if you want to meet up or anything,” David turned to tell Tweek. He then went about putting away his own equipment. Tossing a puffy vest on, David grabbed up his now filled guitar holder over one shoulder and pushed in his chair. He looked to Kenny getting his things all in order with his back to the two of his cohorts, and moved to Tweek, quick to put a hand in front of his face as he stared down at his notepad of lyrics, drawing his eyes up. “Seriously,” David told him in a hush, “If something’s up, I’m here for you, man.”  
“I-I’m fine, dude. It’s all good,” Tweek tried to assure him. His two friends were all packed up and ready to head out. He breathed a sigh before remembering David was above him. He gave a hesitative thumbs up. “Totally,” He tried covering his sigh. David gave a huff, nodding at the door in front of him.  
“I’ll see you soon, Tweek,” David assured him on his way out the door.  
“Yeah, see you soon, man!” Kenny gleefully chimed in, jumping out the door. Kenny grabbed it swinging towards him, as he jumped through the opening to reach up to David. David looked at his friend walking beside him and nodded at him as he stood illuminated by light through the coffee shop’s windows, smiling with snow falling down around him. Kenny smiled at him, eyes still dropping and walked beside him. After maybe a minute, David slowed down his pace, and came to a stop behind Kenny, Raising his hand to the air, and with great force and precision, let loose two ninja stars from between three of his finger, jabbing into Kenny’s back, causing him to yelp, “What the fuck, man?”  
“You were being an idiot in there!” David announced for Kenny.  
“What are you talking about?” He responded, now moonwalking to talk with him. “I am not an idiot, you hear!?”  
“Then why are you being rude to Tweek, who is clearly going through something right now!?”  
“Tweek is an adult, now, man,” Kenny is quick to argue, “He’s going to be doing things all the time from now on. He runs the coffee shop already, for fuck's sake!”  
“Yeah, I know, but,” David gave another huff, pinching his nose to gather his thoughts. He had a headache. “He was acting differently. Less stressed, more depressed? Didn’t you see?”  
Tweek sat alone in his coffee shop. He looked around the store. There were potato chip crumbs around the floor and big melted smudges of snow mud on the floor and tables where Kenny had rested his feet. There were also new dishes to do, and the smell of cigarettes to get rid of before his store was ready to open for seven AM the next day, or what was moreso that day, at that time. The sight drove his head into a slump and an exaggerated sigh.  
It wasn’t until Four in the morning that Tweek saw his store ready, two glade scented pod shits whatever they are on opposite sides of the room, with only maybe enough time to his the scent, that he turned the lights off in his front room. “Jesus, why do I do this to myself?” He asked, pushing into his backroom of the store. This had been doubling for his home and his office. To make it through this last year of school, Tweek had decided to flip his father’s house on the down low to some people who promised to keep quiet, and, for what would be a new precedent, in the new year of 2018, Tweek would make Tweak Bros. would see a profit. After that success, he could maybe get his own nice apartment.  
In the meantime, Tweek had sold everything he’d owned minus a fridge, a laptop and a 3DS to hold onto some money for a while and moved into a tent in the corner of the staff room of Tweak Bros. getting to his knees Unzipping the tent of his flap, FUCK, the flap of his tent, Tweek looked in with surprise to see Craig lying in his bed. Tweek’s eyes then went to a furrowed state, and at last, came to a close, as he carefully crawled into bed, wrapping an arm around the body already there. He gave a gentle kiss to the boy’s cheek and took a deep inhale. The boy let out a soft groan, “Getting to bed late, aren’t you?”  
“How long have you been here?” Tweek offered instead.  
“I’ve been here since maybe, like, ten. I thought I’d surprise you in the new year.”  
“Sorry to ruin the surprise,” Tweek was quick to apologize  
“Don’t worry about it, I got a better gift. I’m gonna go into the store in an hour, clean up all the Christmas shit, start up the baked goods… Brew all the pots…” Craig was teetering back towards sleep fast, “And then I’ll walk the decorations back to my house so they won’t be littering up your store.”  
“You don’t have to do that,” Tweek nuzzled up against the back of Craig’s neck, now pulling the blanket over his legs. He then tossed his pants out the side and laid his head down to rest. “You should get your sleep.”  
“Nahh, I broke into your Hooverville home, some hard labor is the least I can do,” He pointed out, turning over to rest a big arm over Tweek’s small body and pull him close.  
“Whaddubout your mom?” Tweek tried to trip him up.  
“That’s the glory, I sneak in before she knows I was ever gone, and then I announce for her and her new boyfriend to know that I’m heading to work.”  
“And the new daddy won’t have any problems with that?”  
“He can try and stop me.”  
Tweek nestled his head against Craig’s chest. “It’s too much.”  
“Your right.” I’m too good for you,” Craig tried joking in his monotone voice, giving a kiss to the top of Tweek’s head. Tweek took in a deep breath, eyes shot open. “Kidding,” Craig immediately backed up. “Sorry.”  
Kenny and David walked along the snow covered sidewalk towards David’s home. “Again, you don’t need to walk home with me,” David exclaimed to Kenny. “Weren’t you tired, anyway?”  
But Kenny just shook his “Nahh, I can make this far. I mean, this is a bit of a weird way to take, and all, considering we coulda gone right from Tweek’s and it woulda been shorter, but at least I know where I am still. Actually,” Kenny looked to the line of houses at his right. He knew the one they now walked by, “This is why we walked this way, isn’t it?” Kenny stopped walking for a moment, and David was quick to turn around. “Do you always take this way?”  
“No, not always.” David defended himself.  
“Why do it with me if you think I’m gonna be a dick about it?”  
“I didn’t say I thought you were a dick,” David used his hand to illustrate his point “I didn’t even use the word dick, I said rude. And I said you were an idiot, because I know you didn’t intend to sound like that. This is an instance of you not being able to pick up on social cues.”  
The two stared at one another, David resting a hand on the fence of the house in front of which they stood. He looked up to window on the second floor with longing, “I can’t stop pretending.”  
“You were doing a terrible job,” Kenny pointed out before he had even been said of what.  
“I just need someone to talk to about it, because it’s eating at me. I can’t handle doing nothing anymore.”  
“Kyle’s been single for, like, that’s some pretty old news, I think now’s probably the best time for this,” Kenny tells Kyle, assured in his answer.  
“I don’t wanna rush him into anything.” David practically wines.  
Kenny pulls off his hood and whips the long portion of his hair out of his face, brushing it back with his hand, pressing a hand to his temple to ease his mind for a moment, then chopping his hand at David, “Okay, we’re all ten, then one day, ‘Introducing David Rodriguez!’ Or maybe from your perspective, ‘Introducing Kyle Broflovski!’ And with a click, you are on him. It’s like a revelation, lie that cute ass gay animated short that came out the same week as the Emoji Movie, ‘member that one? That was cute as shit,”  
“Positively adorable,” David quickly affirms.  
“And then he starts dating Heidi. Right?”  
“Y-yeah,” David says with a noticeable amount of embarrassment at the memories.  
“Yeah. So, that last for a while. Maybe middle school. Then it’s off for a while. I’m off for my series of sexcapades, some shit goes down, it seems you’re friend number three for a while. You’re thinking, ‘now might be the time.’ But you still wait. You don’t wanna ruin a friendship with someone who might not even be attracted to guys. And then you get conformation in the form of Stan. And that one hurts. But now, you’re ready for the next time. Well, everytime next time came, it didn’t last long enough for you to ‘build up the confidence,’” Kenny tossed air quotes around those words. “So, now is the time. M’kay? Cause if not now, then it might have to be never.” David gave a sigh, as Kenny walked back towards him and put a hand on his shoulder. He gave a final piece of advice. “Follow your heart.” Kenny then let David go, walking from the circle of light cast down upon them by a street lamp to the other side of the street, raising a hand to the stars triumphantly, “To the fruity piece of arse!” And then hopped over fences and through people’s yards on the shortest route to his home. David took a final moment to look up at Kyle’s window, and then went on his way home.  
Kenny opened the door to his home to shed light upon his mother, passed out on the couch. He closed the door and walked precisely through the dark of his home, eyes slowly adjusting to the light let in through the windows. He walked past his mom on the couch, whispering out “One drunk mother,” Like a check in a box.  
Kenny came to the first door in the hall, cracking it open noiselessly to peak his head in and see the light of a street lamp cast through a shadeless window down on a bed below, revealing the shape and folds a person somewhere underneath, attempting to hide from the cold. Kenny carefully closed the door and let out a quiet “Whew. One sister.” He moved down the hall to the next door. He was far less careful opening this door to look upon an empty bed. With a deep sigh, he announced finally, No brother.” He left the door ajar. His mother might eventually want to move in there from the couch, but she hadn’t used that one since the last time Kevin was home. She’d decided if he ever wanted to come home, it’d be his from then on. Kenny moved on to the final door.  
David pushed open the door to his room, one he shared with his cousin Jessica who lied in a bed across from him. David stumbled clumsily across his room to his bed by the window, flopping down to get the streetlamp he’d just set off outside in his eyes. “Band practice go okay?” Jessica Rodriguez asked.  
“Fine Jessica,” David told her with a grumbly throat. “Now go back to bed.”  
And with that, the three main characters of our story went to bed, but would their story continue? Would I, the narrator, return to tell the story once more!? Find out by method of checking back later, at, like, any time in the next month! And if there’s no new chapter, then maybe not! WHO TO SAY!? I-I-I-I DUNNO, HOW LONG IS TOO LONG TO GIVE!? WHATEVER AMOUNT OF TIME THAT IS, MAYBE APPLY IT TO THIS STORY, NOT WAITING IN A HELD BREATH SORT OF WAY!! LIKE, HAVE SOME SLIGHTLY HELD BACK EXPECTATIONS, IS WHAT I’M SAYING, NOT TO SAY DON’T EXPECT NOTHING, BUT BE PREPARED FOR ANYTHING, NOTHING BEING INCLUDED IN ANYTHING!!!! HAVE A LOVELY NEW YEAR, IT’S NOT NEW YEARS, YET, BUT IT WILL BE IN AN HOUR, AND IF I POT THIS RIGHT NOW, AND YOU START READING IT RIGHT NOW, THEN MAYBE, IF IT TAKES YOU TEN MINUTES TO READ A PAGE, THEN IT WILL BE A NEW YEAR! OR MAYBE IT ALREADY IS, I CAN’T SAY FOR CERTAIN, ALSO I FORGOT ABOUT TIMEZONES FOR A SECOND!!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE, GOOD TO BE BACK, SEASON THREE, STARTING NOW, CONTINUING FOREVEERRRRRRR!!!!!!!


	2. Things start happening

David’s head snapped back up from sleep, only to look around and realize he was no longer in his comfortable bed, but in a small shop front, like that of a restaurant. He was quick to note the comfortability offered by the bed, the seat soft as a pillow, but with an unfortunate lack of a back, offering no lumbar support. But with his feet on the floor and his arms at a convenient angle to the front counter, behind which one man worked diligently, cooking a storm as fast as three subway workers at rush hour combined, taking on the task with ease. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t, in fact, one person, but an octopus, dressed in a chef’s outfit, tentacles extending beyond a length conceivable under the worker uniform all the way across the kitchen.  
The octo-chef turned around, its eyes closer together than the average octopus’, more forward directed like human’s. But below its eyes were only the tentacles slipping down to fill out the uniform it mysteriously filled. Staring at David, David staring right back, the octopus told him “Aqui vas,” and laid in front of him a bowl of noodles, three tentacles extending to his right and laying noodles for other customers of the store, each seeming shrouded in black cloaks, with collars covering their faces.  
David looked down to the noodles and then back up to the octopus, who was already turned back to his work, and told him, “G-Gracias?” David was confused as to where he was, and whether he should actually eat his food. They steamed with heat, and when he moved close to take a whiff of them, the heat singed his nostrils. Hesitant to eat them and burn his mouth, and still confused as to where he was, David got up from his chair and stepped backward towards the door.  
One of the three men in dark coats ruffled in his seat without revealing his face, but David knew he was staring at the unattended bowl of noodles when he spoke, “Oi! Hombre, no es bueno dejar tus tallarines convertirse en frìo.”  
David scratched at his neck nervously, “Yo… Yo sòlo estoy llegando aire fresco. Voy a ser de vuelta.” David bumped into the door behind him with surprise. The room he was in was incredibly compacted, with barely enough room for two people to walk side by side. The door he turned to face was wood framed with many panes of frosted glass with a strange wavy texture, sort of resembling the glass of his family’s shower, a place David would sometimes hide within to get away from the family that cramped his home. Sliding the door open, David was immediately confronted with a cacophony of sounds. The first thing he was a vending machine filled packs of cigarettes lit up in green. His attention was drawn up, to the two towering buildings the squeezed together tightly, with wiring and fire escapes going in between. This restaurant found itself in the middle of a back alley, along with some other small business that seemed to have hours reaching into the dead of night, where charming looking nick nacks could be seen being sold. David took a step out from the door of the restaurant in which he found himself to look at the sign, but there was no name written above it, nor a sign, only a lantern jutting out from the wall, hanging from a chain with a minimalistic design of three shapes, a white half circle bowl, four wavy yellow lines of noodles raising out of the bowl being pulled by two chopsticks represented by thick red lines illuminated from some source within. He’d seen the design once recently on a cookbook cover. The sign was perfectly square, and the cover appeared on all sides, but should have only been visible from the street where customers would be drawn in from, rendering two sides useless.  
A call came from within the restaurant, “‘Ey, boi, why don’t you come in and close that door before the Onis try and get in?” a second of the voices said continuing on speaking in Spanish, but writing in a second language is hard, so you’re gonna have to meet me halfway here on this.  
“Onis?” David whispered to himself. Looking up and down the street, David saw two large red ogres walking up the alley with their backs turned to him, before they reached the mouth to the street and turned back, now facing David with their gnarled teeth poking out of their mouths, jutting into black tangled facial hair that had never known razor nor comb, eyes looked blankly in different directions, still both generally looking forward with a clear gap of vision somewhere in the middle, and large, green noses, like that of cartoon witches, each with a matching boil on the end. The absurdity of their faces was made up for by the massive, muscular upper body, wielding in one hand a club of pure steel that could have weighed as much as David and covered in spikes. David quickly stepped back into the safety of the restaurant, and with one last look at the vending machine just across from him, shut the door behind him.  
David turned to the men seated at the table beside his bowl of noodles and returned to his seat. Looking down at his bowl, he could see tiny octopi and cut up carrots within. He pulled up strands of ramen through his chopsticks resting in his bowl. “That’s better,” One of the men to his right said. David couldn’t help but eye them nervously.  
“Oh, pay us no mind,” The third man told David. All three of them spoke in Spanish to him.  
“Who are you?” David asked them. All three quickly removed their hats and folded down their collars. Faces now shown, David was all too familiar with them each. He named them left to right, “Juan Gabriel, Cab Calloway and… Ghostface Killah?”  
“Sup, weeb?” Ghostface Killah greeted him, tossing up a peace sign.   
“Why are you here?” David asked.  
“We’re here to offer you advice,” Gabriel explained for them.  
“No, I know that, already, I mean Ghostface Killah. Usually, only dead people show up in my dreams.”  
“I’m here because I’m the best of the Wu tang members, with the most consistently quality album releases before and after the end of Wu Tang.”  
“Yeah, but it’s not like Wu Tang is a massive part of my life. Maybe back in freshman year and middle school, when I just started listening to rap and all, but I dunno,”  
Ghostface raised a hand and waved away David’s comment saying, “Look, I’m a master lyricist, now do you want advice, or are you gonna be a punk about this?”  
“I’ll be good.” David looked away from the Wu Tang clansmen down at his bowl of noodles. Though he had realized this was all a dream, Ghostface Killah’s presence was still intimidating to be around.  
“Talkin’ to me like I’m over the hill, I know you haven’t even checked Sour Soul, yet,”   
Juan Gabriel laid a hand on the arm of Ghostface, “Please, Ghostface, we entered this dream for a reason. Allow me to take over for a moment.” Juan turned to David, “Now, my boy, we’ve come to you for a reason, but you must first tell us what that reason is before we can offer you help.”  
“Aww, I don’ like that rule,” David whined. “Can’t you just help me?”  
“You need to face your issue before overcoming it. It’s a process,” Calloway added in, sipping and slurping up his noodles.  
David gave a look below furrowed brow from one of his mental guides to the other before letting out a sigh, “I think I lost my rhythm,” he admitted with a huff.  
“Eh. Don’t think so,” Ghostface was quick to comment, holding up long strands of noodles with his chopsticks before pushing them into his mouth and sucking them down.  
David and Gabriel stared at Ghostface over his vague comment. “Could you explain why, Dennis?” David asked.  
Ghostface sucked up the ends of his noodles and wiped the liquids splashed against his cheeks away with his sleeve, pulling his arm back to rest his chin on the back of his hand. “Music, like anything else, isn’t a matter of talent or fluking into knowin’ how to play the guitar. Ya gotta work towards bein’ the best, just like anythin’ else. You can’t just lose your rhythm. And even if that were, you can always work to get it back.”  
“Well, thank you, Ghostface Killah,” David said, sarcastically, “But I was kind of already aware that practice makes perfect. My problem’s more like… Ugh, okay, it’s hard to explain. I just don’t have any ideas left!”   
Dennis Coles pouted his face, giving a psh and standing up, grabbing the stool upon which he sat and holding it by one of the legs. Ghostface started mumbling to himself, “Bitch ass motherfucker, course you already knew that, it’s your fuckin’ brain. Why you givin’ me shit over your own know-it-all ass,” as he slid open the door of the small noodle shop and walked out, slamming the door behind him. Ghostface slammed it so hard, it kicked back open.  
Cab raised a finger up, “Eh, David, could you just close the door, again? It is below freezing out tonight.”  
“Huh?” David quickly twisted his head from the door to Cab, “Oh, yeah.” David stood and walked over to the door. “Is he gonna be alright out there with the Onis?”  
“Hm?” Cab had already return to eating his noodles along with Juan. “Oh, Dennis? Yeah, he’ll be fine.”  
David looked at the shut door and gave a shrug. As he was returning to his seat, the sound of a bellowing roar of an Oni could be heard on the street, followed by the sound of Ghostface shouting “Eat it!” and the immediate follow up of an Oni’s body shattering through the door, a cartoon bump on his forehead.  
As David stared at the Oni’s collapsed body, he could feel the chill of wind on his skin. “David, I asked if you could shut the window,” David heard Cab calling him, again. This time he sounded distinctively different. “David.” He asked, again, sounding more like someone else he knew.  
“DAVID!” David shot up with a pain in his arm. He looked around to realize he was in his room, again, the window at his side strangely agape. Looking from the window at his left to the other side of the room, his cousin stood over him, fresh off of punching him in the arm. “Quit opening the window, it’s freezing out!” David looked up to the window he’d wrestled his way over in his dreams and slid it shut.

Kenny grumbled as he pushed his rusty door open. It always seemed to fight him in his efforts to get through it. Shoving it open and stumbling through the birth, he looked around the one floor of his home to see Karen sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal.  
Kenny entered the kitchen to the delight of his sister. “Morning, brony.”  
“That’s a terrible nickname,” He informed her, reaching to rub her head before she dodged his hand.  
“Uh-uh, no more messing my hair!” Karen protested. “It takes a lot of work to make it look nice in the morning, and your so vigorous, it puts good work to waste!”  
“Right, right. Sorry,” Kenny apologized on his way to the fridge. Kenny returned to the table with the beat up box of cereal and milk and a bowl. Preparing himself a breakfast, he put on his first smile of the day, he looked up to Karen, “So, how’s school been? Make any new friends?”  
“Eh. School’s school. I haven’t really made a, like, new friend since middle school.” Karen spooned the special K around in her bowl. “I didn’t hear you get in last night, how late did your band practice go?”  
“Uh. Late.” Kenny couldn’t answer the question, because he didn’t actually know. Time seemed to melt together after a while. “Nothing all that interesting there, though. Sorry.”  
Kenny smiled up at Karen and Karen smiled back, but neither knew how to keep the conversation going. Meals had been awkward like this for a while.  
Kenny drove Karen to school everyday. The two pulled up to the school at the student drop off. “Alright, Karen, have a good day at school,” Kenny said.  
Karen sat in her seat holding her bag against her chest. “Are you gonna come with me, today?”  
Kenny moved his lips agape to speak, but only slipped out, “Em.” a honk came from behind their car, which Kenny snapped his head back to address, but quickly returned his fix to his sister, “I’m sorry, I gotta work.”  
People kept honking at the parked car holding up busy parents from their work day. Karen sighed as she pushed open the door. There was something on her mind, but she held her tongue. Ever since Kenny quit high school, Karen confided in him less and less. Kenny worried about the space between them as he flipped a middle finger visible for all behind him to see and started driving off, but then he saw his old friends, Kyle, Wendy and Butters walking and laughing together, and his gaze seemed to linger upon them as he drove off.

David was waiting around the second floor of Orange High. The second floor had a slight overhang overlooking the front entrance of his school where he could look out and watch for when one of his friends entered the school. When he saw Kyle and Co. approaching the school. Upon sight, David quickly headed for the stairs.  
Kyle Broflovski was the kind of ideal body for a basketball team that made him a star player at the school, standing tall at maybe six and a half feet, he stuck out like a sore thumb among the high school, a metaphor only heightened by his mass of dark red hair, normally tied up in a poofy bun or hidden away under a hat. His face came into its freckles slowly, and every year there seem to be more like a retired senior living in Florida. A gash across his nose from getting his head banged into a table left him with a white strip in the freckles and a crooked, Alan Rickman nose, Alan Rickman being both very handsome and very missed. Kyle used to walk with a slouch to hide his height, but since joining the basketball team, he’s walked proud and proper, puffing his bulky chest out. But when trying to talk with Wendy and Butters in the roar of the school’s crowd, he had to lean down to hear them speaking, them both being a foot below him.  
Kyle walked into the school with Butters and Wendy, discussing school events. “So, it’s official!” Wendy exclaimed with that budgeting deal done, we can keep both Prom and the talent show.”  
“Battle of the bands,” Kyle specified. “It’s already pretty well known that people only sign up for the talent show so they can sing.”  
“Yeah, but this year, we’re gonna have actual talent!” Wendy rebuttled.  
“Aww, c’mon, previous years weren’t all that bad,” Butters spoke up in defense of those who weren’t there to defend themselves.   
“Butters, last time there was a show, your ex threw an instrument into the audience,” Wendy reminded him.  
“Well… That wasn’t due to a lack of talent. And… in his defense, he did manage to only hit his target.” The event they were referring to was when Kenny beat up Cartman for harassing him at the talent show. Cartman gave everyone a hassle, whether they were good or not. But Kenny was sick of it, and in the days following the ordeal, rumors were saying it was Kenny’s way of going out with a bang, everyone saying if he hadn’t been expelled then, he would have flunked out that year anyway, others who didn’t know him well enough saying even Cartman didn’t deserve a beating that bad. But whatever the rumors said, all that mattered in the end was Kenny wasn’t there the next day of school, nor any day after.  
When Butters had tried to talk with him, he wasn’t at home, and all he heard for a week was a text: “Hey. I’m not gonna be at school anymore. I think we should stop being together, too. I should stop dragging you down. Love you.”  
“Butters? Butters!” Kyle slapped Butters on the shoulder to get his attention. He’d drifted off for a moment. “You alright? You were looking a little wistful there.”  
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m just… I’m just dandy!” Butters perked up real quick as Kyle brought him out of his daydreaming of times long past.   
“Alright. Well, it’s time to get to class, c’mon.” Kyle and Wendy started heading for their first period with Butters following close behind.  
David was pushing through the crowd of kids piled into the large front hall of his high school looking for Kyle just as people began filing out to their classes. BUt instead of finding Kyle, Karen found David. “David!” She shouted in his face with a smile on hers.  
David was spooked by her jumping at him. “Karen! Wh-what’s up?” He said half heartedly as he continued to the general area over with his eyes for any sign of Kyle.   
“I wanted to talk with you about my brother, are you looking for someone?”  
“Uh, no. Well, yes.” David babbled in a hurried tone. He suddenly turned his focus to Karen, “Actually, I’ve got a promise to keep to your brother, right now, so I’m sorry, but we can talk later, promise.”  
“Well… Alright, but-”  
“Thanks, Karen, you’re the best, see you around!” David had seen Kyle walk past him, and so had Karen. As David did a one-eighty and walked away from her in a hurry, with eyes narrowed at David on his way away from her attempts at a conversation.  
David managed to catch a glimpse of Kyle, but only just as he walked into his classroom, and he couldn’t bare to enter a class he wasn’t in just to talk with someone. He looked around, standing still in front of the door of his class, but caught an accusative eye of Karen, waiting at the other end of the hall, and turning away quickly saw Wendy looking at him from within the class, and now frantically looking around, decided to just keep running away to his class.

Kenny sat at the register of a gamestop in the local mall. This had been a job he’d been working for maybe two months. One of the three. The store was empty because it was eleven in the morning on a Monday. His only fellow employee took their lunch break early because they hate the monotonous morning shift. He was completely alone. He stared ahead blankly as Led Zeppelin’s ‘Your Time is Gonna Come’ came on the radio. As the rapid organ playing faded into the singular strumming of rhythmic keys he could feel a welling in his eyes. By the time Robert Plant started singing, tears started streaming down Kenny’s face and he didn’t know why, so he kept asking himself in the solitude of retail.

David sat down at a table in the cafeteria with a styrofoam tray along with two other random seniors he knew. He was a relatively well liked, especially among his usual group, being the most approachable of them, and the one who still frequented school. Tweek tried when he could, but at this point, they were a business owner, and juggling those two at such a young age was an effort in madness.  
Before David could get engrossed his thoughts, Karen slipped into the seat just next to David, giving him a shock. Trying to maintain his calm, David squeaked out “What are you doing?”  
“Sitting next to my good friend, David,” Karen replied. “Ready to talk?”  
David looked to the other two people at his table, who raised eyebrows at David’s company and his reaction to her. David snapped his head back to her, hands raised up around his face as to obscure the sight of him the slightest bit, “Alright, what is it you need to talk about?”  
“Kenny,” She said. She didn’t follow up the word with anything else, and David stared at her with his hands up near his face before circling them around one another to get her to keep going. “Right, sorry, thought you’d protest again, umm. I don’t like Kenny not graduating from high school. I want to come back and finish.”  
“And you want me to make him?”  
“Yes,” Karen gave a single, divisive nod.  
“Okay.” David pulled his hand across his face from forehead to the chin beard his post pubescence had started giving way to. “Alright, what you should understand is that Kenny made his decision a long time ago. He’s an adult, now, and no one can force him to attend school.”  
“He’s not an adult!” Karen asserted, “He’s not even eighteen, yet!”  
“Karen, he takes care of both you and your mother. He’s handling more than anyone else I know at our age-”  
“You’re his friend, are you saying to me that you don’t want him to finish his education?”  
“No, that’s definitely not what I’m saying-”  
Karen kept cutting him off, “So then why wouldn’t you want to help him complete it?”  
“I do!” David started talking faster, “But you have to understand, I can’t affect his decision in this matter, not only that, he didn’t quit, he got kicked out! Even if he wanted to come back, that is a long and egregious process!”  
“What’s egregious mean!?”  
“Bad! Very, very bad!”  
The two of them stared at one another for a moment, fuming at one another. Karen lips were pouted and quivering, looking for what she could say. “You’re an… Opulent mother fucker.”  
“If there’s an opulent Mexican, I’ve yet to meet them,” David rebutted.  
Karen let out a huff. She spoke more softly, “What’s more important to you, your friends or you’ll social status?”  
“My friends, of course,” David replied in a whisper.  
“Then you won’t mind if me and all my freshman friends sit at you during lunch from now until my brother gets back into school, will you?”  
“If you think that’s your idea of punishment, consider willing and ready to receive.”  
“What?” One of the nearby seniors at the table cut into the conversation at the half heard sentence.  
Karen turned to her friends at a table nearby their’s and called out to them, “Hey, guys, we’re sitting with David, today!”  
A half dozen freshman got up at once and made their way over to the table, three sitting opposite Karen and David, one those three being Ike Broflovski, the adopted little brother of David’s long flame, and to his left, two JV football players now to David’s left. “Sup, David?” Ike asked him.  
David shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Nothing, Ike.”  
There was a rough nudge at David’s arm that made him raise his head from his momentary despair and look to the JV football player at his right. “Sup?” He asked him.  
“Nothing?” David asked in response.  
“Say, wanna do yourself a favor and switch seats with me so I can sit next to my girl?” The stout boy asked David.  
Karen popped her head out from behind the monolith David seemed to be compared to the children gathered round him, “Sorry, Filmore, baby. I gotta sit next to David so I can whisper bitter things in his ear.”  
“What!?” Filmore and the senior at the end of the table who’d been listening in on the conversation said in sequence.

Lunch came to an end, and David wasn’t ready to go back to class, having gotten no time to recuperate from the long day. He made his way to the back of the school, where he exited through doors unlocked for gym use. The day was chilly, and the feeling caused him to shiver. The first thing he did upon exiting the building was reach for a pocket on his backpack, opening it to remove a pack of cigarettes. Placing a long boge between his lips, he headed around to the back of the school structure, lighting up his cigarette as he walked unattentive of where he headed. HIs lighter worked poorly, so it took him more than a few tries.  
As his cigarette caught light, he raised his head for a long first drag, only to find himself in back of the school with Kyle Broflovski not far off, a stick of ashes dangling off the end of a half smoked cig. He was dressed in gym shorts and kept rubbing his hands over his sleeveless arms to keep warm in the stiff cold. As David stared, a stiff breeze blew across the back of the building, kicking up loose snow that fell the night before and dragging it along the wall, a wall of flakes hitting Kyle’s side, the wind taking the ashes from his cigarette. He winced, and when he opened his eyes next, he was looking at David.  
“Hey,” David meekly greeted him.  
“Hey,” Kyle responded.  
David looked around the area, and decided to make his way towards Kyle. He stood next to him and rested his back on the brick wall next to him. The both of them stared off to the track and football fields off in the distance. “You alright out here without a jacket?” David asked.  
“Oh yeah, I’m fine, man. I come out here during this class all the time. What about you? You skipping, right now?”  
“Just a bit,” David pulled the cigarette from his lips to blow smoke into the breeze, it getting carried off into the distance. “I didn’t know you smoked,” David returned the cigarette to his lips.  
“Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t, nowadays?”  
“The majority of people actually.”  
“Alright, fair. I’ve seen the statistics,” Kyle placed what was left of his boge to his mouth and pulled it to its end, holding it down for a moment, and letting it go slowly, beginning to speak with smoke still petering out of his mouth, “We’re the generation that’s supposed to beat smoking.”  
“Ehh, that’s just a nice sentiment pitched to us by people who only attempt to prevent. They’ve never looked at it from the perspective of people who are smoking already, or imagined what can drive someone to smoke. Not to say quitting isn’t important, but, uhh…” David took another drag as he tried aligning his thoughts on the matter.  
“But quitting is for people with healthy alternatives,” Kyle chimed in.  
“Right, right, like, if quitting were the worst part of my life right now, then yeah, I’d be more open to the idea of stopping, but as it is, this is one of the few senses of relief I and get in the day.”  
Kyle gave a chuckle, “It’s nice talking with you, man. I miss your intelligible perspective.”  
“Heh, can’t be all that smart,” David protested, jokingly, “I just got in an argument with a freshman.”  
“What about?”  
“Ehh, nothing… Pressing? I mean, okay, maybe a bit pressing. But nothing you’d want to have to hear about.” David reached into his bag and pulled out his pack, “Would you want another?”  
Kyle looked at his pack, “Ooh, menthols,” He joked, “How long have you been smoking?”  
“I started at maybe twelve,” David quickly told him. “Helped with work.”  
“Mmm, got it. But no, I can’t bum when I’ve still got my own.”  
“Alright, no problem.” Kyle took another cigarette out of a pack he stuffed into his underwear during gym, where he thought they’d be held in without anyone bothering to check for them.  
“So,” Kyle started before going through the process of lighting up. With a big puff, he continued, “Battle of the bands is definitely gonna happen, this year.”  
“Nice to hear,” David said with a smile.  
“You’re gonna perform, right?” David looked up at Kyle. “You and Kenny and Tweek?”  
“Uhh…” David took a moment think how to respond.  
“You’re really good. Kenny’s shown me some of your stuff. You have a great singing voice. I dunno.” Kyle took another drag. “Maybe that doesn’t mean much coming from me, I dunno crap about music.”  
“No, no no, it means more than you could imagine,” David professed. The two of them found themselves looking one another in the eye for a moment before Kyle gave a chuckle. And with that the two of them found themselves laughing at one another.  
The two knocked their butts into the snow and crushed them under foot. “It’s been good to talk with you, David,” Kyle told his old friend. “I think it’s about to get back to class, though.”  
“Yeah,” David nodded as he stared off into the distance. “Always a pleasure to see you. What am I, ten minutes late?” He looked at his Run The Jewels wristwatch. “Eh, that’s not too bad.”  
“We’re supposed to be the good students,” Kyle pointed out as they started walking together back to the open doors on the other side of the gym structure. “We’re not supposed to be late at all.”  
“Ehh. I’ve still been later.”  
“Right.” They rounded the corner and Kyle started running. David stared as he ran away from him. He turned around at the corner that would lead to the doors, and waved, “Can’t wait to see you playing live!”  
“Yeah! Thanks,” David whispered his tank you to himself as he waved goodbye. Kyle disappeared behind the corner and David slowly lowered his hand. “Yeah,” He said to himself with a smile, “Okay.”


	3. Nyext!

Tweek hadn’t gone to school that day. He had stayed and help running the store with Craig, or else he’d feel guilty about it. He told these things to Kenny on the phone while he, too, was at work. It was the only time he’d stopped to do anything but work that day. At Tweak Bros. Coffee, there were two employees: Craig Tucker, who sometimes didn’t work for pay to give Tweek a day off, and Jimmy, who needed a job, and decided to take up working Tweek Bros. on the condition that he may host a standup night. Clyde and Craig cooked up a whole plan to steal half the middle school stage, a nice wooden desk that seemed to glisten, it was a hold great side story, but another time; After the stage was put in, and jimmy had started showing off a general host of shows, including stand up night. It became a frequent spot for the Larry David’s, the earliest name of Tweek, Kenny, and David’s band put in misplaced awareness, making them popular around the town.  
“I couldn’t leave him here alone!” Tweek screeched into the phone at Kenny.  
Kenny laid flat on his counter at Gamestop, phone dangling from hand over the side, blasting on speaker Tweek’s usual story for when he skipped school, nowadays. Kenny calmly returned “Maybe you should let him do his work. He’s already decided to skip.”  
“No, I couldn’t leave him here, it gets so busy in the morning!”  
Kenny looked to the empty mall outlet with its rows of physical copies. “Must be heaven,” He remarked to himself, “Tweek, have you ever thought it’s not alright to let one person drag down your education?”  
“Go-like you’re one to talk!” Tweek responded in a heat. The sound of him slapping his mouth shut could be heard through the phone.  
Took a moment to process the statement. “Are you talking about my baby sister?” He asked with a reserved tone. “The one I have to keep fed?”  
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lash out like that! It’s, it’s been a long Year!”  
“It’s January eighth, Tweek.”  
“Yeah, yes, yeah.” Tweek pulled at his forehead.  
“Alright, Tweek, I’m gonna try and stay patient here for a minute,” Kenny said, avoiding fuming in public, “I have no problems with Craig, great guy, but he’s not your responsibility. You’re not the one keeping Craig fed, he has his mom for that, still. You know I would kill for one of those.”  
Tweek didn’t know how to respond. “I’ll see you at the next band practice.”

It was after that point that Tweek constantly worried if his relationship with Kenny was now fucked up. He thought about it until the point that it hindered his working ability, and when it was over he took one of his incredibly high stools out in front of the building and altered between taking drags and looking at the starry night sky and resting his forehead on the back rest.  
Craig was cleaning up the back of the store when he looked out and saw Tweek like he was. With a sigh he finished up cleaning.  
Tweek had gone through three cigarettes in ten minutes when Craig came out with a bar stool and sat next to Tweek. “How’s it goin’?” He asked.  
Tweek pulled his hand across his cheek. “I dunno. I fuckin’,” He wiped his forehead. “I think I fucked up, again.”  
Craig was cracking open a beer can. “Nahh, you’re all good. I’m sure whatever happened isn’t as bad as you think.” He raised the cracked can, “Want one? We’re off the clock.”  
Tweek took the beer can. After a sip, he turned to Craig, “Craig, how long have we been together?”  
“Shit, I don’t fuckin’ know,” Craig took no time to ponder before blurting out his response. Tweek gave a sigh, and Craig decided to reanalyze their time, “Uhh, maybe four years?”  
“It’s been six,” Tweek corrected him.  
“Shit, really? The time seems to melt away. I guess I never really thought about it. I mean, I clearly have an anniversary date for that in mind, but it’s just been, like. I dunno, being with you is like being with my best friend. I know you. I know who you are, and it doesn’t really matter to me how long we’ve been together, as long as I’m with you,” Craig took a sip of his beer to find a metaphor, “As long as I’m with you, I feel a click in my chest. I’m thinking right now that it’s kind of like a key to a lock, but no. Uhh, maybe more like a gear that you put in a grandfather clock, and it suddenly comes to life, ticking on.”  
“Huh.” Tweek had finished the beer while Craig was talking. The small thing drank fast, a bad choice for the irregularly small boy. “So I keep you regular?”  
“No, not “regular.” Regular is for laxatives. I like my clock metaphor. You’re an important part of my life. Something to hold onto.”  
“Alright. I think I get what you’re saying.” Tweek shook the empty can, peering into the small opening in its lid. Seeing nothing, he brought the can to his thick skull and crushed it.  
“Jesus, gets me everytime,” Craig commented about Tweek’s strength.  
“Why don’t you go to school anymore?” Tweek came at him with the accusation, bluntly.  
Craig chuckled and scoffed, “What?”  
“I mean, you’re coming around here to pick up shifts more than you’re going to school, nowadays. Sometimes I can’t even pay you, and to know you’re wasting your time here when you could be going to classes… It hurts me to think what your doing to yourself.”  
“Please, you sound like my mom. I’m not worried about my education. You’ve got enough on your plate here. You need the help.”  
“I’ll hire a new part timer. Maybe a full time worker. You should finish school.”  
“Tweek.” Craig rested a hand on Tweek’s shoulder and drew his eyes up from the ground to face him. “I wanna be there for you.”  
Tweek couldn’t help the twinges coming across his face as he was forced to acknowledge the one he cared for so much. He clambered out of his chair, dragging it by the backrest along the ground to the door, its feet scraping along the ground. He covered his eyes with his other hand as he pressed his forehead against the glass door, before suddenly turning to Craig, eyes still watery, voice now strong. “Craig. There are some things we need to talk about. Could you…” Tweek was struggling to finish. Craig just stared, looking his usual calm, feeling a strange nonplussed that was new to him.  
Craig turned away from Tweek to the street. “Right.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Staring into the three fourths empty pack, he mumbled, “Gonna need more cigarettes for this,” as he hopped out of his chair and then tossed it over his shoulder like a jacket.  
“I keep a carton behind the counter,” Tweek said, holding the door for him.  
“I know you do,” Craig said in a manner that sounded like he was trying to sound romantic, but they were talking about cigarettes, so it didn’t really have the desired effect he was looking for.

Tweak Bros. was closed for the week. Some people were shocked to see Craig back in school consistently by Wednesday, other were shocked to see Tweek on Friday, but what shocked everyone was how they weren’t hanging out together. Tweek spent most of his Friday not talking to anyone, and it was only on Thursday did Craig seemingly start to rebuild his school friend group, Clyde being the first to resume orbit around the hot ball of gas, Token talking to him at lunch on Friday, a simple “So, what’s new?”  
Craig invested in Token what was new that afternoon, and the two of them and Clyde spent the weekend together for the first time since November. Kenny was the first person to come to Tweek’s aid in handling his emotions.  
It was Thursday that Kenny had gone to talk to Tweek, banging on his door on another snowy night. “Tweek, open up! It’s me, Kiieenny!” he came calling through the glass, referring to himself in his mock-Cartman voice. The coffee shop was dark, and there was no sign of Tweek. Kenny didn’t believe for a second that Tweek could be sleeping, even after a bad break up.  
Kenny somehow found his way onto the roof, ad hanging off the overhang, searched the back room from his little vantage point. In the little corner in which Tweek lived, Kenny could see the dimmest of lights-as he suspected a phone held close to the face as to best destroy the eyes-illuminating the tent that Tweek slept in. Kenny reeled his arm back and banged on the glass to try and scare Tweek. He could see the light suddenly flicker all across the tent.  
Tweek tactically rolled out of his tent and flashed an LED flash light in Kenny’s eyes, causing Kenny to almost fall off in surprise. The flashlight was turned off as Tweek realized who the invader was, and Kenny could get a good look at the shambling boy dressed in his raggedy pjs, looking lower than Kenny’d ever seen him. But to just see him, Kenny got a big smile and waved at him through the window. Removing his hand cause Kenny to lose his balance though, and he found himself slipping off the icey roof, anyway, falling to the ground below.   
Everything got a bit blurry for a second before Kenny realized Tweek was standing over him in his tattered pajamas. “Are you okay, man!?” He asked frantically.  
“Oh, yeah. My heads had far worse blows,” Kenny tried reassuring him as he rubbed the bump on his head. “are you okay, though?” He asked Tweek back.   
“Ohh,” Tweek moaned, less like ohh, though, more halfway between ohh and ugh. He sat down in the fresh snow and dragged his hands over his face. “You’re here about the temporary shutdown, right?”  
“No, I’m here because my best friend is depressed and I wanted to be there to help support them,” Kenny said matter-of-fact with a big smile. Tweek stared with a curve in his brow and surprise in his eyes. This was the first time Kenny had told Tweek he was his best friend, but it had been true for years, now. “So how ‘bout it? Wanna talk about it?”


	4. You don't own me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A note to all my friends from school: I've made plenty of you aware of this hobby of mine, and let me say to any of you who might have put in the effort to find this page, you better like this page before making fun of me behind my back, otherwise, what kind of friend are you?

Sunday morning, Tweak Bros. was open after Tweek and Craig’s break up, of which only Token and Kenny knew the details. Tweek and Craig were never big on emotional investment, but both had become accustomed to the advantages having a best friend for a boyfriend brought with it. So, after opening up to one person each, the both of them had been able to maintain a surface level sense of regularity. Whatever either was actually feeling at the time was as clear as it ever was with the two of them.  
Jimmy was working the counter of Tweek bros, and Tweek handled most of the brewing. This was the usual set up, as no one could step to Tweek in terms of brewing. But while the two of them were busy keeping the business running, all the way off at David’s house, interviews were being held for a new employee who would hope to step to Tweek’s aforementioned brewability. An ad had been placed on Linkedin just that Thursday, as well as in the window of the cafe and at the high school, but with those three locations and a description reading NO RESUME? NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE? NO PROBLEM!!! JUST COME ON DOWN TO *David’s address here* AND WE’LL JUDGE YOU LIKE A JURY OF YOUR PEERS!”  
Despite this horrible marketing slogan Kenny had come up with, and despite the two people who came to David’s trying to steal his things, the turnout was pretty high with twelve applicants.  
Kenny and David sat in David’s living room, eleven people waiting in his basement while a twenty-seven year old stranger sat on a chair opposite them on the couch. The two of them stared at this man with mutton chops like that of the Wolverine and wavy hair falling to his shoulders looking down at their clipboards, each with enough paper for notes on all the applicants, David already taking notes before the interview had begun, Kenny looking from his blank page to David’s and seeing notes like “noticeable odor,” “jacket’s covered in pins and patches, why?,” and “Strange aura of distrust.”  
“So do you have experience with this kind of work in food service, Mr. Lynch?” David asked him.  
“Oh, plenty,” Mr. Lynch responded, confidently, “I’ve been going in and out of coffee houses for maybe ten years now, I must’ve worked at a dozen different places.”  
“Uh huh, and why so many?” David quickly followed up.  
“Well, I’m a bit hard to retain. See, I like to keep my options open.”  
“Mmm.” David took notes stating “Bad track record, likely unreliable.” “Do you have contact information for any of these coffee houses we can use to contact them?”  
“Oh, sure, I keep information on all of my previous jobs for emergencies. Heh.”  
Kenny began rubbing his pen back and forth up and then down his page, “Why the slightly delayed ‘heh?’” He asked, glaring up from his page.  
“Oh, nothing, just an auditory tick. Hehe,” He said again, giving a sly grin both times.  
“Mm hm.”   
“What do you think you can offer to Tweak Bros?” David asked next.  
“Well, the reason I choose to work exclusively at coffee houses is that I can offer a particular sense of ‘atmosphere,’” he informed them.  
“Care to explain?” David tried dragging more information out of him.  
“Simple you put me in a coffee shop, people are gonna notice. You put me on the counter, there’s suddenly gonna be people coming in asking ‘do you have soy milk? I find regular dairy to be too inhumane.’ or ‘can you make this low fat?’”  
David spent a moment just listening with his pen hovering above the page, unsure what to write before looking up at Mr. Lynch, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand what you’re implying.”  
“I’m gonna be the one to take your coffee shop and turn it into a real coffee house, and when my work is done, I’ll move to another,” Mr. Lynch stated with a wave of his hand to signify him moving on to another.  
“What’s the difference between a coffee shop and a coffee house?” Kenny asked while David processed.  
“Well, a coffee shop, you go, you get your drink, you leave. Maybe you’ll sit down if you’re with someone else, i dunno, but when you go to a coffee house, people will stop and look at your art installations from local artists. They’ll appreciate how your music seems to really harken back to a time before radio became mainstream with its top hundred songs of the year; They’ll seem to spend a whole hour just sitting and talking about Peter Green Fleetwood Mac versus Stevie Knicks Fleetwood Mac, all while sitting in leather chairs between a shelf of books just crammed together all haphazardly-intentionally, of course-and a section wall right before a window comprised entirely of black and white photos taken on the set of ‘The Birds.’”  
“Mmmm.” Kenny let his sounds of comprehension drag out into a slow grumble as he turned his clipboard to David’s line of vision, wherein thick sketched outlines was only written the word NO circled three times.

At Tweak Bros, there are six tables: two of a regular size and four of those big monstrosities-Tweek also installed a ledge along the front window where there are another eight usable chairs with a good view not much at all. They constantly need to be moved around to make way for the semi-movable portion of stolen stage that gets put up along the back wall. When the stage comes out, Tweek and the three people he needs to help him move out the stage take the tall chairs and push half of them against the front counter. Two high tables remain in front of the stage, and these short tables are then used as safe space for performer equipment. Tweek has diagrams printed out to streamline the process of setup. But when those two tables aren’t pushed against the far wall, they are instead just far enough away from the wall to serve as a big eight person table. And somewhere between three and five times a week, these tables are used by the Goths.  
At the head of the table with his back to the wall boy with a large, crooked nose and tired, blue-grey eyes pressed a thumb into his forehead, “What is this terrible music that’s playing?” Commented Michael, the lanky, curly-haired leader of the group that walked with a hunch. A boy named Stan Marsh, who I don’t think has been relevant to this story yet started a rumor that it was because his dick was so big. It wasn’t a clever rumor, but Stan wasn’t a clever boi.  
“The same crap they always play in shitty little coffee shops. Soft rock,” Explained Henrietta to his left, a heavy set girl with a layer of white foundation a series of black covering layers over hips, beneath her eyes, inside her eyelashes and frequently reapplied to her hair. She explained this through sips of her coffee. Henrietta was the one to take Stan’s rumor and improved it by saying Stan had a lot of first-hand experience with Michael’s dick.  
“Soft is right. This puts me to bed better than a bed ever has,” quipped a boy three years younger than them named Firkle. Firkle hadn’t cut his hair since he was in elementary school, and by now it combed out to his waste. Firkle had the same perfect cheekbones as Ezra Miller and the guitarist from Alabama Shakes(pull up pictures of those two side by side, their shockingly similar) and wore as much makeup as Henrietta. Some less enlightened folks used to call him terrible names for this in middle school, a three year period during which Firkle had almost no friends. Though his middle school days were dark, Firkle was clever, and showed entrepreneurial spirit, organizing fights between high schoolers and planning out novel ways to torture his middle school harassers, usually focusing on breaking their psyches. It became apparent by high school that every one of his bullies did end up seeking therapy for unknown reasons by high school, so it’s suspected he succeeded in his goal.  
“Whatever,” With a flick of his hair, the last of the party came to rest his head on his hand and stared at the large window across from him. “Where the fuck is Tweek?” Pete asked the group. Pete was the same age as Henrietta, and just like her, had to artificially enhance the bags under his eyes with makeup to look half as tired as Michael. Pete’s hair color had chameleonized in high school, and had shades of black, red, blue, purple, and then black, again. It was in their freshman year of high school that Peter fought Stan Marsh over the belief that Michael had been having anal sex with Stan Marsh, although this much was only known to everyone since it was a very obvious secret that Pete wanted to be with Michael since he’d sexually awoken in middle school. This was a whole story in its own, kind of like the aforementioned stolen stage, but all you need to know is that Firkle organized the fight, earned seven hundred dollars off of it, his best turn over ever, assumedly brought on by the draw of the whole backstory and widespread appeal of a star JV quarterback, and the fight ended with Pete getting his ass handed to him before Tweek jumped in, literally, and gave a Bruce Lee style high jump kick to Stan’s head, which caused an instant TKO. Though Tweek was already well liked within the goths, him having introduced them to Death Grips, but it was this that decided Tweek’s status as an honorary goth.  
“I think I saw Tweek heading into the backroom maybe ten minutes ago,” Firkle answered Pete’s question. Firkle was comfortably hunched in between Pete and Firkle and watched everyone in the room carefully, as he always did. He liked to be aware of his surroundings at all times.  
“Oh shit, yeah, he’s been hiding back there all day,” Henrietta chimed in, turning to the door through which she hoped would come to their friend. “I wonder if something’s wrong.” It was part of their regular schedule that when they came to Tweek’s, he would stop by and talk with them for at least ten minutes out of an hour, yet since their arrival thirty minutes ago, it seemed like he hadn’t even noticed them.  
“Who cares?” Michael sighed out. He was looking down at the empty mug he rolled around on its rim out of boredom, his other hand still trying to lessen his migraine.  
“I mean, shouldn’t we?” Pete asked MIchael seriously.  
With a sharp inhale and just as quickly followed by a sigh, Michael stood from his chair and grabbed his cane. “Alright. I’ll go find out what’s up.” Michael walked from his group of friends up to the front counter where Jimmy sat alone.  
“G-Good evening sir, how may I be of assistance?” Asked Jimmy, a boy with a warm smile of teeth turned straight after years of dental repair, messy brown hair, and a lazy eye.  
“What’s up with Tweek? He’s been dodgy all day.”  
“Oh. T-Tweek’s been having a b-bad week, s-sir-”  
“The name is not sir, Jimmy,” Michael cut him off, “Just call me Michael, already.”  
“Right, sorry. Um, T-T-Tweek’s just under a lot of p-pressure, right now, so your g-gonna have t-to give him some space.”  
Michael looked at the back door, “Yeah, no. I’m gonna go see him for myself if you don’t mind.” Michael stepped away from the counter heading for the door.  
Jimmy raised his crutch to try and halt him, “Uhh-actually, I do think th-”  
“Jimmy, when I said ‘if you don’t mind’ I wasn’t saying I wouldn’t if you did.” Michael pushed through the door and walked into the back room. Jimmy just stood at the front counter, watching him go in back. He would have gone after him, but looking around the bustling cafe, felt he had no choice but to stay and man the counter. He let out a dammit under his breath.

“It says here that this would be your first time working,” David tapped his pen against the paper in front of him. “We’ve had at least three applicants with far more experience than you, what makes you think you’d be a better choice for this position than any of them, mister… Dog Poo?” David looked up in confusion at the filthy stranger across from him and Kenny.  
“Well, first off, Dog Poo is just a nickname, I’m sure you guys are aware. And if I’m to be quite honest, it might not have been so wise to make this particular assumption, but I was hoping our previous relationship would have been a serious benefit in getting this position,” the young mess said with a nervous chuckle. Seeing both Kenny and David still confused, Dog Poo raised his hands and began stammering, “But, um, I-I certainly am a hard worker, believe me. And quick to learn new things, I’m certain I could get the hang of my position quickly.” David glanced down at the page then to Kenny, and Dog Poo nervously tapped his fingers together, and with a twitch here and there returned them to his lap, covering nervousness with smiles poorly.  
Kenny clicked his tongue, “Can I ask, what do you mean by previous relationship? Is there some sort of sexual encounter I’ve forgotten about?”  
“No, what?” Dog Poo seemed to be in shock. “No, we’ve been in school together since we were five.” He looked at both David and Kenny unsure by what he meant. “Surely you remember? We saw Dio together, and-”  
“Dio, what?” Kenny cut him off, “I’ve never even been to Cairo. I mean, I’ve fought plenty of vampires in my day, but you must be thinking of someone else. And please, don’t call me Surely.” He joked.  
“No, I wasn’t. I was just-”  
“Eh, uhm, look. Mister Dog Poo, we appreciate your interest in the position, but you appear unhygienic, which we can’t have in food service, you lack experience, and you don’t seem to understand any of our references.” David explained to him. “I hate to say it, but you are the weakest link, goodbye,” and with that, David pointed him to the door. Dog Poo looked from one to the other before hanging his head in defeat and getting out of his chair and heading for the door. David watched as he left, and just moments after the door shut, he turned to Kenny, “Do you think he got that last one?”  
Kenny looked up to David from a blank page below him, “Hm? Who got the last what?”  
“Huh? I dunno, what are we talking about?” David asked. The both of them began looking around David’s living room, “We were doing interviews, right?” He asked next.  
“Right, right, how far did we get?” Kenny began flipping through his filled out pages.  
“Got a whole ‘nother half,” David reminded him, looking through his own pages.  
“Alright, let’s get back to it.”

Michael walked into the back room of Tweak Bros, looking around the space for the first time. He saw first hand the strange machinery that made the little store run, grinders and storage units filled with beans and cooking supplies, a cold storage unit taking up a back corner. He then came around a massive grinder to see Tweek hunched over a round, wooden table upon which was a glass bong, disposable coffee cups crushed and discarded across the table and floor. There was a sploof in Tweek’s hand and his head in between his arms. He had headphones on and a cord extending to his laptop just barely pried open, so Michael approached without alerting Tweek to his presence.  
Standing above him, Michael came around the table to sit in the only other chair. Michael noted how much nicer this table and these chairs were than any of the metal ones in the front. Slowly lowering himself into his chair, taking care not to stress his bum leg, which he stretched out under the table with his arms, Michael stared at Tweek in his unaware depressive state. Sitting and watching him, Michael could hear the sounds of lo-fi coming from Tweek’s over ears, one of the most expensive items in his possession, music being a necessity for his daily life.  
Michael reached out and grabbed the bong sitting on the table and ever so delicately lifted it and pulled it to his face. Taking his fancy zippo out of his pocket, Michael started sucking in deep, and the sound of his pull scared Tweek, making him jump out of fright and whip his headphones off. “The fuck is there!?” He shouted.  
Michael didn’t even flinch, knowing this would cause Tweek to rise in a hurry. He just glared at him from the bong, taking out the bowl and sucking up his hit. “Oh. You know, it’s really fucking rude to take hits off someone’s piece without asking. And you better use this,” Tweek rolled the sploof across the table to Michael, who put the bong down and blew out through the sploof.  
Michael gave a few baby coughs as he blew out before putting the sploof down next to the bong along with his nice lighter. “Your employee mentioned you’ve been depressed or something? Sounded fishy, considering you’re always depressed. But to see you smoking during at work, that’s a low I’ve never seen.”  
“Whatever,” Tweek sneered, “It’s Colorado, and if you didn’t notice, this happens to be my home, nowadays,” He pointed at the tent and all his two dozen belongings.  
“What’s happened, you and your little boyfriend break up?” Michael joked in his uncaring manner of speaking.  
Tweek gave a sigh and leaned back, “Yeah.” Tweek reached for the bong while Michael seemed to gain emotion as his eyebrows curled upwards for the first time in years only to quickly retract. Michael was dumbfounded by the idea that Tweek and Craig could come to an end long enough for Tweek to get a hit from the bong. “It’s been maybe a week, now,” Tweek added.  
“Oh,” was all Michael could say for a minute. He moved his left and right a bit, “So yeah, okay. What have you been doing about it?”  
“What do you mean, what have I been doing about it? This is pretty much it.” Tweek gestured to the table in front of him.  
“Aren’t you gonna retaliate somehow? Smash up his mailbox, burn down his house?”   
“Michael, I broke up with Craig,” Tweek explained.  
Michael founded himself dumbfounded, once more, only able to give another “Oh.” Michael gave a shrug and grabbed the bong off the table, “Well, what have you been doing since?”  
Tweek gave a sigh as he looked back over his week, “Well… I finally played through Dream Daddy. And… Doki Doki Literature Club?”  
Michael blew out his hit through the sploof and started coughing, “I d-honno what tho-ho-hose things are,” he spit out.  
“Really?” Tweek said with surprise as Michael tried gaining control of his coughs, “They’re great games, both pretty popular last year.”  
“The only game I’ve ever played is Brutal Legend.”  
“Really? That’s a surpri-Brutal Legend!?” Tweek repeated the title with greater surprise, “Wow, like, if you were gonna only play a single game of such obscurity, would’ve guessed, like, Killer Seven. Or Killer Instinct. Or anything with Kill in the title.”  
“I only played it with Kevin Stoley that one time you were trying to bring us and your other friend group together. He thought we might like. Wasn’t all that bad, actually.”  
“Oh, yeah, I should really hang out with Kevin. That’d be nice to play video games with him, again.”  
“Well, there’s a bunch of people sitting out there that don’t hate you, if you want some people to be depressed with.” Michael offered in an uncharacteristically generous manner.  
“Huh. Thanks for the offer.”  
“Don’t thank me. They sent me back here to get your dumbass,” Michael deflected the compliment.  
“Right. Sorry.”

“How many more applicants?” Kenny asked David, head now cast over the back of his couch, tired of all the unqualified and strange applicants for Tweak Bros.  
David gave a sigh, sharing in the fatigue. He lifted the clipboard and flipped through the pages. David got a sudden twinge in his lip “We’ve got one more applicant. And we saved the best for last.”   
Kenny raised his head with eyes wide shut and a questioning “Hm?” As David stood and made his way to the cellar door, opening it wide and calling down for the last job seeker. Kenny stared at the corner from behind which would walk this supposed best choice.

It was that Friday at school that Karen once again had confronted David in the lunchroom. Sliding in from out of view, “Have you talked with Kenny, yet?” Karen said as close as she could get to David without alerting him to her presence, causing him to jump with fright.  
“Jesus! Why can’t you just approach me like a normal person?” David asked with a hand grasping at his shirt.  
“You know neither of us are normal,” Karen put it plainly.  
“We’re pretty normal when you look at the rest of this school. And no, I haven’t.”  
“Why don’t you just ask him at band practice!?” Karen said, patience thinning fast.  
“We haven’t had band practice! Tweek’s had a lot on his plate, and our usual meetup spots been closed as a result. And I haven’t seen Kenny, otherwise,” David gave as a fair amount in the reasons why column.  
“Well, if something’s not done by school next week, you can say goodbye to your popularity.”  
“I think that’s less consequential to me than your imagining. Believe me, I want to help you, I want Kenny to get an education, but there are some things beyond your control.”  
“I don’t believe you, and I promise, I will prove you wrong while forcing you to help prove me the correct!”  
“Could you do something about that ego in the process? Cause I’d be happy to help there, too.”  
“It’s not ego!” Karen slammed her fist on the table, “It’s my brother’s future! Now, what are you gonna do to help ensure its security?”  
David let out a groan as he pulled his hands down his face, pulling his eyes open. “Dios mio, ¿Porque son los problemas de otras personas mis problemas también siempre?” David held his face in its strange state while he began to roll his eyes around in all sorts of directions, rubbing his teeth with tongue. Then, all of a sudden letting go of his face and raising a pointer finger filled with the essence of an idea, “Alright, I have an idea. I came up with it right now, it’s only kind of a solution, and you could probably punch holes through it like paper, but… It is an idea.”

“No,” Kenny quickly dismissed the idea David and Karen presented him.  
“C’mon, Kenny!” Karen insisted, but Kenny had already put down his clipboard and refused to interview her, arms crossed in disapproval.  
“You’re fourteen, you can’t be working a job, yet,” Kenny pointed out.  
“Well, to be fair, we’ve both been working since we were eight,” David pointed out.  
“That’s because we had to. Karen, you don’t need to be working.”  
“What, we don’t need the money?” Karen pointed out to him next.  
“You need your education more. This is a full-time position, we need someone who can work during the day while you’re at school.”  
David rubbed his chin, “Ohh, there’s a big hole.”  
“I can work weekends and after school,” Karen pleaded.  
“That’s not what we’re offering. We need one employee-”  
“So that Tweek has to keep skipping school, too?”  
“Tweek’s an adult, he can make his own choices,” Kenny stated, next.  
“Huh, that sounds familiar,” David said, watching this family argument he accidentally involved himself in.  
“Tweek needs all the help he can get. And if he’s running a coffee shop, I’d think he could afford to pay at least three employees,” Karen countered.  
“What do you know about finance?” Kenny asked her angrily.  
“A lot, actually! It’s what I want to do for a living,” Karen shouted, now in a passionate fit.  
“You want to be a princess.”  
“I wanted to be a princess when I was eight!” Karen was getting emotional, rocking back and forth in her seat with the emphasis of her words. “I want to go to college to be an accountant so that when I have kids, they don’t have to worry about money like we do!”  
“You think I want you having to worry about money? I work so you don’t have to.”  
“You’re seventeen, you work at Gamestop and Chinese restaurant, those don’t solve our financial crises!”  
“And you will?” Kenny’s accusation stung, as Karen found herself with her back against the chair. “You think if you get this job our problems will go away?” Now Karen felt like she was against the wall.  
David was unsure what to do, but at this point, knew to intervene. He placed a hand on Kenny’s shoulder, “Can we have an aside?” He whispered to Kenny.  
David and Kenny entered the kitchen before David had a clear argument in mind, and began nervously in a hushed tone, “So, I don’t want to try and be any kind of family therapist here or something, I just think that what Karen’s trying to do here is in the best interest of the family and for Tweek, too.”  
Kenny’s whisper-yelled, “Are you suggesting she stop attending school for a job?”  
“No, no, it’s just…” David rubbed and scratched at his chin pulling a concise argument out. “She has a point, Tweek is running a successful business. And it’s been running successfully since he took the role of ownership, and if he’s turning a profit, then he can afford workers, like one full-timer and two part-timers. And Karen is gifted with numbers, taking advanced courses your so proud of her for, she could help to better serve Tweek and his businesses, better than the two of us could. You have to be able to see past your bias in this situation and think what’s best for everyone,”  
“What’s best for everyone is for Karen to finish school!” Kenny stated the heart of his goal in this argument plainly.  
“And what happens after school when she’s at college and needs to start paying off tuition?”  
“I’m not worried about that, now. I can figure that out when I get to it.”  
“You’re not the one getting to college. That’s what Karen’s worried about. And she’s right, you can’t treat like a princess, she’s a smart young girl who only wants to help. And you definitely could use some help. What happens if you get hurt, or sick? Where’s the money gonna come from, then?”  
“Oh, like I’ve never gone to work with a broken rib before.”  
“Y’see, that’s a very worrying thing to hear you say. You’re not a superhero, Kenny. You’re human, like everyone. And since you’re human, I understand that accepting this concept as a positive is hard for you, because this isn’t based in logic, this opinion of yours, this is coming from your heart. From the image in your head that Karen is still that little girl who needs defending. But a family is supposed to work together. That’s the most important lesson my parents and Lilo and Stitch ever taught me. And right now, the one getting left behind is you.”  
Kenny wasn’t moved to silence by the words of David. His silence came from a place of intense anger. Anger so hard to control, he could only walk off from the fight he was losing. Karen watched as he walked by her without a word and strolled right through the door, slamming it behind him. She was sad and scared as David came back into the living room, staring at the door Kenny had just left through. Then, with a quick glance at Karen, who was too filled with emotions to look away, the door seeming to represent a black hole through which her family was being sucked into and torn apart within, David walked back over to the couch and sat down. With a scratch at his chin and a tug at his ear, he looked at Karen with plenty of glances away in awkward shame. “We’ll, uh… We’ll be talking about our options with the big boss man and, uh… We, uh, we’ll get back to you with the results.”  
Karen’s face started to convulse with sadness that couldn’t be held in as she gasped for air, again and again, tears streaming down her face, bawling uncontrollably. “Ohh, okay,” David couldn’t help but blurt out to himself. He got up and walked over to Karen, standing next to her for a moment, then leaning down awkwardly and wrapping his arms around her slowly. “I-I-It’s gonna be okay,” He said, not sure how best to be sympathetic, repeating many times “It’s gonna be okay.”


	5. Playing around before the Party starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My Spanish got way weaker these past few months

Now, you know me by now, I like to get jokey, I add the punchline a little thick sometimes, there, but I promise you this: The only person who will break the fourth wall in this story will be myself, your loyal narrator.  
David found himself in a familiar looking alley in some Neo-Tokyo looking town Moving out of the way of dangerous Onis, he heads for the door he went through before, only to find it wasn’t there anymore. Instead in its faith was a familiar place, that caused his mind to flow in rhyme. It went on like that in his head, as if he was trying to make music in his sleep.  
There was no Ghostface Killah, again, this evening. He must not be coming back, David thought, I could have used him for this track. But there was still Juan Gabriel and Cab Calloway. Cab precariously carried noodles from the bowl to his mouth, while Juan showed less reserve, slurping from the bowl. In the back of the room on a stage was a man playing on a spanish guitar.  
David found himself staring at the man on guitar in back. The music the man played soothed him. The music was simple in it’s formulation as his strums filled the room, singing softly to an audience that wasn’t there, “My actions weren’t meant to hurt you, but a liar was what I’ve become.” The song was another simple song of lost love, but how they sat there boldly telling a story of mistakes, David felt like his words had power imbued in them from the man he seemed to know, as well. “Will you forgive me? You can’t buy, you can’t find, you can’t buy love.”  
“Oi!” David suddenly heard someone shouting at his back. He whirled around the same fish-faced shop owner. “Tienes una lengüeta pagar. Mejor tienes mis dinero, o estoy retirarte culo.” The octopus threatened to kick out David.  
“Puedo se permitir lengüesta,” Juan Gabriel spoke up with a hand raised. The octopus man flopped his beard tentacles across his face as he snapped his attention to Juan. Then, looking back to David, he shook his head, then wheeled around, tentacle beard whirring through the air as he spun, and headed back to his kitchen.  
David stared at the door the octopus walked through and made his way to sit next to Cab Calloway. Switching from Spanish to English even faster since now we’re getting lyrical with it, without looking his way David told Juan, “You didn’t need to use your cash, I can feed my own ass.”  
“I’d expect more appreciation from who made my fan club an occupation. If mem’ry serves me right you’d hear me damn near ev’ry night, it seems like appreciation would only seem right,” Juan told him, slurping up his noodles.  
“My parents played you all the time. Their love was empowered through your rhyme, yet I have less of a mind for the music from their time of limelight.” David told Juan, thinking about the times his parents would play Juan Gabriel CDs in their tiny living room.  
“Ahh, but never I, the king of the Jumping Jive, Ehh?” Cab chimed in, feigning being hurt.  
“It’s been a long week, guys, so can one of you meek out the moral I should seek?”  
“Cause that worked so well when Ghostface pitched the sell. Nah, we’ll just take a break so we can eat for a spell.” Cab stated as he ate from his bowl.  
David looked confusedly at his two remaining spirit guides before the slam of a bowl of noodles in front of him snapped his attention in front of him. The server was already walking away as he spat the words over his shoulder, “Feng Shui.” Literally, he spat the words like comic book onomatopoeia. The words shot out in a parabolic arc straight into David’s bowl, submerging themselves beneath the broth.   
David looked from the bowl in front of him to the spirit guides at his side. Neither were paying him any mind as they partook of their meals. David then looked down at the bowl in front of him. He fished through it with his chopsticks. The words from the shopkeep must have melted into the bowl, as he couldn’t find a letter of them. “We’re gonna take a five minute break, be back when the room starts to shake,” David heard announced from the back of the room as the performer stepped off the stage. Suddenly, the shop was silent.  
Confronted by the bowl in front of him, David saw no choice but to eat. David raised the bowl and looked into its murky depths. David took a deep inhale, and swishing his utensils through the bowl, lifted the entirety of the bowl’s contents out at once. He only hesitated for a moment of shock at it’s sight, before pushing all of it into his mouth at once, and without chewing, swallowed it down. It fell heavy in his stomach, like an actual punch to the gut, followed by the sensation of every part of his body being beaten for a moment, and with a sudden bump in his ears, felt the room fall away from him, tearing away into a dark nebulous. The bump turned into a beat. One of great familiarity.

David woke up to his roomies alarm this day. His cousin had a fancy clock from the 2000s that you could set a song to play on instead of the steadfast beeping mechanism. David complained that the alarm wouldn’t wake him up when he heard it, since music was how he usually went to bed, and hearing it in the background didn’t do much, but his eyes were wide at Jessie’s selection of Kid Cudi, this morning.   
David stared up at the ceiling feeling a strange pain in his stomach. He lied there with both of his hands holding his gut in place before a pillow hit his face. “Get out, gotta change!”  
David removed the pillow from his face and rolled over to look at his cousin. “How am I supposed to change if I leave my room?” He asked Jessie as she stood at the foot of his bed, arms crossed.  
“Ha ha, very funny,” She brushed the comment off, “But it’s our room, so you’ve gotta respect the morning schedule. Now go take a shower so I can get ready.”  
David crawled out of his bed scratching his back as it met cool air for the first time that day. He made his way to the door, asking himself “How can someone not be a morning person, but get up with such ease?” loud enough for Jessie to hear.  
“How does a boy look just like his mom?” Jessie tried to return the insult, but it was deflected by David closing the door ever so silently.  
“Good one, I look effeminate, what else you got? Cause if you need help, there are some middle schoolers I know with better material than you,” David kept talking shit as he made his way down the hall into the bathroom. David found himself in the mirror of the bathroom and gave a sigh at the excellent insults he thought of when no one was around. Opening his eyes back up, he stared at himself in the mirror for a moment. He straightened his shoulders out and looked at his chest. With a twist left and right, he got a full examination of himself, and finally he came to his stomach. It looked the same as it did when he went to bed. He couldn’t think why it wouldn’t, that’s not how stomach pain works, but then again, that dream…

School! We’re there now. So is David, as he stared up at the school. With a healthy breakfast and an hour of time, the pain in David’s stomach and had given way to new confidence. He’d recognized it in the quality of his disses towards his cousin that morning.   
“No one uses the word diss, anymore, by the way,” a voice told David from behind him in a glum tone.  
David was quick to whirl around and see a boy with long, black hair, matching black eye makeup and lipstick, and a stature that brought him up to David’s chin if he didn’t slouch so heavily. The boy stared off at a wall of the school, but would occasionally glance up at David for a moment or two. David cocked his head but an inch to the side and asked “Who are you? And did you just read my thoughts?”  
“I heard ‘sick dis’ spoken audibly for the world to criticize. Might wanna learn to keep your thoughts out of your mouth,” The little freshman told David.  
Children were walking past the two of them making their way into the school. There weren’t many people left making their way into the school, and some of the buses were already driving off. People didn’t pay mind to David and this boy as they stared at one another, David deep in confusion. “Dis is a word. Like, it’s in the dictionary, it’s public domain, and it’s not prone to the changing of trends. And again, who are you?”  
“Firkle. I hang out at Tweek Bros, sometimes?”  
“Okay? Nice to meet you?” The two seemed to be equally baffled by one another, as they kept stumbling upon long pauses after brief, sentences.  
“You… You’re friends with Kyle, right?”  
“Yeah? Why, do you want to talk with him, or something?”  
“No. Just…” A stiff breeze seem to take over the conversation for a moment. It wasn’t too brisk that it would cause you to lose a hat or something, but it gave David’s t shirt a mean rustle as he stared at Firkle waiting for a response. Firkle shut his eyes and sighed, “Forget it,” and with that, walked off to the front doors.  
David was left talking to himself, again, in the parking lot of the school, whispering “What is with these freshman? Why do they keep gravitating towards me?” The bell for first period went ringing, and David screamed out, “Fuck!”

David’s day was going very poorly. Walking into his first class late, his teacher turned to him, and was quick to turn to him with his arms folded and call David out, “David Rodriguez. You know my policy about tardiness.”  
“Sorry, Mr. Sycophant, got caught up in the parking lot,” He explained, as he put his bag down next to his seat.  
“That is not my policy. My policy does not say, ‘if you got caught up in the parking lot, you may feel free to waltz in late.’ now please, show yourself to the office.” The teacher then turned to their white board and began to write in sharpie upon it.  
David looked around to his class, then shamefully stood and walked to the door. Before he could get his hand on the handle, however, it swung open and hit his low hung head, “causing him to stumble back and slap a hand to his face crying out, “Ow!” AS a white blur moved past him. Turning back to the class, covering one eye with his hand, David watched a white boy named Alex Glicks slide into his chair, pushing it along the ground creating a high pitched squeaking noise. David looked from the boy with the big grin who thought they were so slick to the teacher, “Mr. Sycophant, Alex just-”  
“David,” The teacher cut him in, noteably using english pronunciations and not bothering to turn around, “my policy also does not state that you are to stand around in my door frame and interrupt my class. Now take yourself to the office before we have an issue.”  
DAvid saw no choice but to step out of the room and close the door behind him so that he could whisper to himself, “Oh, there’s already a serious issue, here.”  
Being in the office was a bad time, but David received his punishment and was sent along his way. The day moved on until it came to lunch. David’s lunches had been disturbed to an increasing amount, because of Karen. On the second day of it’s occurrence, he tried telling her he didn’t even care and that he didn’t place such a high value on his appearance to others, but Karen contested that he was in high school, to which he couldn’t argue. But now, Karen wasn’t there, that day. She’d missed class twice that week. The fight with Kenny had really torn the family up. In her stead, though, was Ike Broflovski, and what had been intended as a punishment had turned pleasurable.   
Ike Broflovski, the little freshman with a missing tooth from hockey, and as of last week a black eye, freckles centered on his nose and a bit across cheeks, such that they formed a thin diamond shape when squinted at, and flexed out when he smiled his warm smile. His mother didn’t mind paying the dental bill for him, Ike was an all star hockey player, and he loved it, so it was the least she could do. Ike said he only had one fake tooth, and that the chip wasn’t even hockey related, but there were rumors that his mouth was filled with them, and that everytime he knocked one out, the tooth fairy brought him a new stick, even nicer than the last.  
In the time David and Ike spent eating together at lunch, the two had come to enjoy the company. They often bonded over music, Ike introducing David to the world of synths, David showing him some of his influences in rock and its transition into rap.  
David saw Ike sitting alone at a table where, without Karen there, few other freshman would approach him. Ike’s personality was such that he always had something to say, but it often was an explanation of how human nature drove the actions spoken about or trying to relate to one of the many non fiction books he enjoyed reading in his spare time. David decided to be the one to approach Ike, this time, sitting across from him at the tables closest to the doors.  
“Hey, Amigo,” David greeted him, “what you reading, today?”  
“Oh, hey, Buddy. It’s a book on early childhood development. Sort of on the relationship between parent’s actions and how that affects their adulthood.”  
“Huh? Personal investment, there?”  
“Oh no, just looking out of a personal interest. Strange how you approached.”  
“Well, I thought I might mix it up, today. Make it easier on you.”  
“I think he might be talking about me,” A voice drew David’s attention to his side. Three inches from his face, staring right at David was Craig Tucker.  
“Jesus!” David jumped once again in fright. “Why is everyone sneaking up on me, today?”  
“I dunno, why are you sitting with Ike?” Craig asked, tilting his head at him.  
“Why are you even in school?” David was quick to throw back.  
“What, I value my education.” Neither Ike nor David believed Craig’s claim, as the both of them just continued staring at him. “Well, what else am I gonna do? I’ve got no job to blow off my time at.”  
“Okay, did you want something?” David made himself direct.  
“No. Just looking to eat some lunch.” David looked down at his tray, accepting he hadn’t just broken into the school.  
“Okay. Well you didn’t need to sit right next to me to do it.”   
“Fair enough.” Craig gave a shrug and started away at his sandwich. David then turned back to his meal. He really hated the taste of school food, looking over the meatball sub before him, but had no choice but to eat it. He contemplated the position the cafeteria put him in before, “speaking of space-” The sentence made David groan before Craig could even get to the point, for he knew what it was going to be about.  
“Craig, if this is gonna be about Tweek, all you need to know is that he needs time. Maybe go talk to him when you finish high school.”  
“This isn’t about Tweek. I was wondering if you wanted to blow this space.”  
“What does that even mean?”  
“I’m asking if you wanna go for a drive, go get some real food.”   
“I don’t believe that won’t lead to a conversation about Tweek.”  
“I can’t promise it won’t.”  
“Craig, find something to think of something other than Tweek, why don’t you?”  
“Perhaps develop an interest of your own. Hobbies are always healthy distractions,” Ike suggested.  
Craig glared at Ike, then back to David, “Why are you hanging with Kyle’s little brother?”  
“It’s a whole thing, doesn’t matter, all you need to know is I’m not ditching school so you can try and get back with Tweek. You need to acknowledge his feelings in this whole matter.”  
“I know how Tweek feels. I’m not trying to get back with him, right now. I just got some things I need to talk about. And I don’t know who I can talk to about this kind of stuff.”  
“You’ve got friends, don’t you? What can I tell you that they can’t?”  
Craig turned away from David and went fishing through his bag. David glanced at Ike, but all he could do was shrug. As he turned back to Craig, he saw him pull from his bag a piece of paper and show it to him, “You can tell me about this.”  
In Craig’s hands was a flyer for the talent show. “You want to talk to me about, what, performing?” David sarcastically guessed.  
“Yes,” Craig said in what sounded like a serious tone. David was now found without a response.

Behind the school, I like jumping around, we’re behind the school, and behind the school, as we are, also happened to be three familiar characters dressed in gothic. Henrietta and Pete were passing between one another a hookah pipe, as they had hidden a hookah piece behind the gym to improve their smoking experiences at school. Michael wasn’t there, as he was a year older, off at community college, and only back for weekends. As for Firkle, he was huddled with his knees to his chest and his back to his friends with a cigarette in hand.  
From the gym just next door, the sound of Gucci Mane could be heard over the speakers being played for those in gym class. Henrietta had tried covering it up with whatever the high school goth kids are listening to nowadays, in my day being Bring me the Horizon. I feel like I’ve written that exact sentence before.  
“God damn. Rap is such an awful construction of the mainstream,” Henrietta bashed those in the gym. “Everytime my mom makes me listen to this crap on the radio, I feel like I’m gonna throw up.”  
“I know. Rap somehow seems to be getting worse all the time,” Pete chimed in.  
Firkle didn’t feel like chiming in. He had a lot on his mind. Like how he actually kind of liked Run the Jewels, or at least their second album, where beats were so aggressive, he couldn’t help but bob his head along with them, and the similarities between rap and metal, in which both strived to capture the emotions of an outkasted audience.  
“I think this school could do for a whole makeover. There’s a light that calls to be shined upon the unaware sinners, so they may know what they’ve done wrong,” Pete went on.  
“Why bother? Let the fools live in their unawareness,” Henrietta blew out smoke rings, and as they flew away, raised a finger gun to them, “And when the day comes for them to learn, it’ll be all the more entertaining for us to watch them learn that there is no Heaven for them.”  
“But why wait when we can be the ones to ring the bell that tolls for them,” Pete suggested, hand extended for the pipe.  
“What are you talking about, Pete?” Henrietta asked. She waited for an answer while taking another hit, but after a long drag, turned and saw the hand waiting and a judging look from Pete. Henrietta handed him the pipe with a “Sorry,” but Pete stared at her after getting the pipe and took a drag while staring at her.  
“What I’m talking about,” Pete began with smoke billowing out of his mouth, “Is showing them all something they’ve never seen before. Real metal.”  
“What, do you want to break into the principal’s office and play the Fragile over the P.A. system?” Henrietta asked, only slightly sarcastically.  
“Nothing so juvenile. I have an idea.” Pete raised his hand to the sky and highlighted the words before Henrietta’s eyes as if they were emblazoned above her, “The battle of the Bands.”  
“And you just called my idea juvenile.” Henrietta scoffed.  
“Think about it. If we go up on that stage and show the world our poetry, it’ll reveal our talent to the world, and the school will finally know how we feel about them, and they’ll have no choice but to cheer with their simple minds melting from our skills as poets being mixed with sweet screaming vocals.”  
“Ooh-kay, Pete, ignoring the ridiculous sentiment of performing in front of an audience of Zane-obsessed, Kanye forgiving high school students, how could we possibly perform as a band without knowing how to play instruments?”  
“I actually know some stuff…” Firkle cut into the conversation.  
“Really?” Henrietta turned to Firkle in surprise. She was supposed to be new team leader without Michael always being there. She spent a lot of time noticing her own slip ups as a leader rather than helping clean up the messes of others. NOt knowing everything about your childhood friends seemed like a major oversight.  
“See?” Peter gestured to Firkles back to him, “We’ve got all the band we need. All we actually need to find is someone with the voice for our words, since we can’t be seen singing on stage.” Pete thought, considering the position of group leader a competition between him and Henrietta, and this all being subtext to be delivered later, as the camera gives a slow push in on Pete from medium tight to close-up positions, “And I think I know the perfect person for the role.”

“Y’see, you’re the perfect person for the role!” Exclaimed Token, Bassist for South Park’s freshest band, the Punters, a name made up by the drummer, Clyde Donovan. “With the three of us, there’s no doubt in my mind we could be the ones to win Battle of the Bands!”  
Stan Marsh ran his fingers up the length of the electric guitar Token had brought to the school that day for him to play. They’d just played a set of three songs everyone gets taught just to make sure they all actually knew how to play, and hearing his fingers reverberate in the speaker behind him, he couldn’t help but laugh, “This is fucking awesome, dude! I can’t believe you guys would actually want me for something like this.”  
“C’mon, man, Battle of the Baaaands!!” Clyde exclaimed, slamming his sticks between his two timbales. “We need a good guitarist, and you’re the best man left! Best across the gender line left, really! We didn’t discriminate in our search for a lead before comin’to-”  
Token had to toss a drumstick at Clyde’s head, which hit hard against his big dumb forehead. “Dude!” BUt it was too late, as Stan was already staring at Token disdainfully. “Okay, so you weren’t our first choice, but you gotta understand, you’ve lost a lot of stock in the school. The fresh prince of football lost it’s luster after the falling outs with Wendy, the Goths, that time you let Cartman trick you into punching him while he was already hospitalized, and not to mention Kyle and Kenny-”  
“Look, I don’t need you to throw my failures in my face for me. I remember what I’ve done wrong, and I’ve suffered for it, but I’m here now, and I’ll show you guys I’m more than all that ugly past.”  
“You’re right. And if we didn’t believe i second chances, you wouldn’t be on this stage, right Clyde?”  
“Right!” Clyde excitedly agreed with Token “And if things don’t work out, than all that’s at risk is our own popularity by virtue of association!” Clyde said this with equal excitement notable in his tone. “And now that we have a band, a name-”  
Stan cut in with a raised hand, “I actually think if I’m gonna join, we should have a talk about the name ‘The Punters.’”  
“Too bad!” Clyde continued, now in a heat, pointing at Stan with a drumstick. “All we need is a song to play!”  
“Actually, you can play a set of up to three songs,” Token specified the rules to Clyde, but Clyde didn’t care.  
“Deep Purple, Highway Star!” Clyde threw out, fast.  
“Ughh. So old, no one wants to see that anymore,” Stan mocked Clyde, sticking his tongue out and pretending it smelled.  
“What, people love Deep Purple!” Clyde was quick defend an excellent band an excellent song.  
“I think Stan’s saying we need something the high school audience will enjoy,” Token once again clarified.

“What about Unsane?” Firkle suggested to Henrietta and Peter, “They put an album out last year, and put out their best album in the last five.”  
“Firkle, it’s 2018, Wreck came out six years ago, and we’re not gonna cover something that’s over half a decade old,” Pete scoffed off Firkle’s suggestion.  
“Especially without knowing how to play instruments, as I keep having to remind you,” Henrietta added, in a tone tired of reminders.

“Alright, how about Tiger’s Jaw? We can definitely hit all the bases, there,” Bebe Stevens suggested to Wendy Testaburger, Nichole Daniels, and Red Tucker, rival band number three.  
This particular gang of four had gone to meet up in the band room the second classes had finished for the day, but upon arrival, saw Token, Clyde and Stan all already there, a strange and perfect rival trio to the gang of four. A gang so perfect, not even Bebe could pull her usual move when she saw one of her friend’s exes, where she puts her arm around them and says “C’mon, babe, let’s get out of here,” to scare them with her homosexuality. The move only really worked on Stan, the closest of the three to a homophobe, and made at least Nichole uncomfortable when she did it, but today, they all just ran.  
“We shouldn’t even be looking to do covers, the performance specifically asks us to write all original songs,” Wendy specified, having the flyer for participants right in front of her.  
“Damn.” Red leaned back in her seat with her hands holding her head “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. We’ve got two of the best writers in the school in NIchole and Wendy. Plus, my bass skills!” Red boasted, pointing to the case at her side.  
“I just think that if we really want to put ourselves over the top, we at least want to know what kind of music we want to make before signing up for gigs. We don’t have a lot of time, and sure, Red and Bebe, you guys give us a competitive lead. But we’re starting as far away from the finish line as possible,and the finish line is moving towards us, pretty fast. And if we hit the line, we’re just going to be knocked on our backs,” Wendy tried explaining.  
“Wendy, you’re getting too worked up over this,” Bebe pushed off Wendy’s statements with the wave of her hand, “We only first formed, and everyone knows the first step in making a band is making a look,” And with the wave of a finger to the air, Bebe announced, “To the mall!”  
But, as they weren’t whisked away, Wendy added, “I just think we need to establish some base premise.”

“Alright, so the premise is-” Craig Tucker continued in the next chapter, because I finished this chapter two weeks ago, and decided I just need to break it in two, since it’s already been two frickin’months since I updated the story, last.


	6. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We gotta bump up the rating on this one! This chapter's got elements of sexual and innappropriate behavior, but none moreso than what you would expect from South Park. Not to mention, this gets stupid at points, and honestly, this whole chapter might be stupid, I dunno; I had fun writing it!

If you were to head out across the highway from South Park and travel past the next town, taking the exit after Ingleton, you would find yourself a half mile away from a Texas Roadhouse, a restaurant themed after a Texas Roadhouse. This roadhouse fits the image well, as the surrounding area is desolate, save the many evergreen trees that fill the background, indicating that, though inside this restaurant, it’s all Texas, outside, you’re still in Colorado.  
Looking inside the restaurant, it truly is uncanny, the design in comparison to a true Texas Roadhouse, the tables looking like crappy metal folding tables from the fifties, a railing separating the large pit area with something less than a dozen circle tables, notable in being made for humans to sit in properly, and along the other side of the railing, booths for people who aren’t comfortable being seen in the center of a Texas Roadhouse. And though this place serves fine steaks and burgers that are just fine, the atmospheric decorations manage to harken back to both a strip club and the times when Texas was only notable for its oil extracts by way of rig-the old rigs, not the ones destroying the Gulf of Mexico, or apparently, according to wiki, get turned into artificial reefs after being decommissioned, which sounds like a really neet vacation stop for the nihilistic diver.  
The weirdest accessory in the bar was a stage, upon which four animatronic southerners pretending to play the music coming through speakers into the room, with cowboy hats, which one bot tipped every tipped every twenty seconds or so.  
Below a neon light in the shape of the Texas flag with the words, Bud Light in each stripe, David Rodriguez, and Ike Broflovski sat with Craig Tucker, who had driven the both of them out this far to talk about the Battle of the Bands. David insisted it was all unnecessary, and a conversation they didn’t need a steak dinner for, but he couldn’t deter Craig.  
A woman in her mid-twenties waited on the three of them, pad and pen in hand, hands-on side, leaning against the booth along Craig’s side, going on forty-five seconds of waiting for Ike to order. With the time they spent waiting, David had noted her name tag said Rusty, and her hair matched her name in its deep red hue, with the kind of volume that screamed ‘eighties’. She had some spotty freckles, but a smooth face like Winona Ryder, but the cheekbones of Sarah Jessica Parker. “I ain’t got all day, hunny,” Rusty let Ike know.  
“Dude, seriously, just order something. What’s so hard?” Craig pushed Ike. He sat directly across from him, the group in a booth as far from the door as possible.  
“I don’t have cash, what am I supposed to order?” Ike pointed out.  
“Really, Craig, why did we even go to a restaurant, why would any of us have money? Do you?” David asked.  
“I brought you guys here, I’ll handle the check, now would you just order something?” Craig pressured Ike, again.  
“Alright, fine. I will just have a garden salad,” And Ike tried handing the waitress his menu.  
The waitress pulled on her ear, darting her eyes from Ike, “Yeah, we don’t got salads,” She told him, meekly.  
“What? How?” David asked, disgruntled by the news.  
“Yeah, our, uhh, usual crowd weren’t fans o’ the option, and they got the item removed from the menu…” She explained  
“But it’s still right here,” Ike lifted the menu to show her the salads available, of which there were four options.  
“Well, yeah, but as you can see, we put these little skull and crossbones next to them,” She pointed her pen at the page.  
Ike turned the pages back to himself, and scanned up and down the menu, turning over to the second page. “There are skulls next to half the menu, I thought those were just symbolizing the healthy options!” He looked up at her in shock. The woman glanced away from Ike. David noted she had an earpiece in, as he could hear the faint sound of someone’s voice from where he sat. He turned around to see where she was looking and saw a man in the doors to the kitchen, where he could hear him shouting just as faintly from the earpiece. The chef saw David staring and darted back through the doors. “Sorry, hunny, what we got is what you see.” David turned back to see her shrugging.  
“Alright, then I’ll just have what Craig’s having,” And he handed her the menu, again.  
“Right…” The woman looked back and forth from Craig to David, and after two glances at each, asked, “Which one of y’all’s Craig?” Craig raised his hand and gave a mehh of distaste. “Alright,” She sighed, writing down x2 next to Craig’s order and walking off, “I’ll be out with your meals in twenty.”  
“Great,” Craig said under his breath as she walked away. “Alright, so the premise is simple. Beat making.” Ike and David were found at a loss from Craig’s conversational segue. “For the battle of the bands.”  
“Is this what you brought us to a Texas Roadhouse for?” David asked.  
“Well, yeah… Kinda, look!” Craig raised both palms to keep either of them from speaking. He shook his hands as one would trying to flag down a car from the side of the road, “I know what you’re both thinking-”  
“I’m thinking you don’t know how to play an instrument,” David pointed out.  
Ike was taking a long sip from his unsweetened iced tea; pulling the straw from his mouth, and giving an “Mmm,” He nodded in agreement, “That seems like a most pressing issue. It’s probably gonna take more time than two months to learn to play.”  
“I know how to play an instrument,” Craig protested, “I can play the flute, and a little bit of guitar.”  
“Well, Flute’s great if it’s nineteen sixty-five and your name is Ian Anderson, but you’re not gonna get into any band worth their salt in practice if you only know ‘a little guitar.’ Just ask your friends: Clyde and Token were looking for a guitarist all week and didn’t consider you an option once.”  
“You should be realistic with your goals on this one, Craig,” Ike chimed in as he does with David, “Most people practice for years, like a lifelong passion for music. I started when I was in elementary school, learning piano to relate better to Kyle when he was playing violin in middle school.”  
Craig gave a sigh, and wrung his hands together, “I’m not looking to join someone’s band. Since last year, I picked up beat making as a spare practice. Like Soundcloud creators, I’ve got a bunch of early work, I can show you some shit,” Craig had his phone ready to go, “I didn’t tell anyone about the hobby. I wanted this to be something I could impress Tweek with. I just… Never thought it was all that impressive to show him. He’s been doin’ this for years, he’s got that naturally depressing life that makes for great musical inspiration. But what do I got for inspiration?”  
David waited for him to continue. “Oh, you’re asking us?” He grasped after a moment, “Oh, well, if you think all music comes from great depression, then why not write some cheesy love songs trying to win Tweek back.”  
“I already told you, this isn’t about Tweek!” Craig snapped at him.  
“You brought him up!” David shot right back.  
“Music’s more than just looking for inspiration, Craig,” Ike jumped back in with his level head, “Inspiration is important, sure, but people don’t just make music out of feelings; I wouldn’t have continued making music when Kyle got bored with violin if that were the case. If you wanna make music than you should just start making it.”  
“Right, that,” David confirmed. Ike was impressing David with his perspective. David kept finding himself struggling to create more music this year, his writer’s block manifesting in weird dreams, and Ike had this whole clear concept of music. “What do you even want from us, specifically? You said you needed us for something, you dragged us all the way out of town just to talk about wanting to play music when you could have just kept playing.”  
“I didn’t both of you, I dragged you out here,” Craig pointed out, pointing at David. Craig lowered his hand and kept glancing at the two before letting out a sigh “I wanted to bring you here because I need help. Cause you’re right. I don’t know anything about music, and you have been doing this for years. I need to know what I’m doing. If I wanna stand a chance.”  
“Dude, you could have just asked. You didn’t need to drag us away from town, it’s not like anybody’s gonna care when they see you asking for help!” David started yelling at him. “We’re talking about a high school performance, You’re not going on stage at the House of Blues!”  
Craig lowered his head in shame, “It is more than that. You guys are gonna be performing, and the Geminis are local rock stars.”  
“It’s not the Geminis, anymore,” David pointed out.  
“Really?” Ike said, a bit shocked. “What is it, this time?”  
“It’s, um, it’s a bit in flux, at the moment, we had a few issues with the last one.”  
“You guys should have stuck with the Damned, honestly,” Ike said, reminiscing over their best name.  
“Yeah, that one, um, it had some issues,” David reminisced of when the Damned came to town and firebombed the dumpster behind Tweak Bros. The incident ended with The Band and Craig getting into a brawl with them while wearing the outfits they’d worn for the cover of Machine Gun Etiquette. Kenny wore the outfit of feathers, and in the aftermath, David decided it would just be worth it to change the name if they didn’t want to have to kill the Damned.  
“So what, are you gonna help me, or not?” Craig brought it back to his need of a mentor.  
“Oh, yeah, forgot, umm.” David started scratching his chin, trying to avoid eye contact with Craig who was just staring at him. “Umm…”

Kyle found himself sitting around his house alone. He had been in a back and forth conversation with Butters since school had ended maybe an hour ago. Butters had last sent a message wanting to know if he would want to hang out. Kyle sat on the couch of his living room in an empty house, typing out his response, ‘nah, I’m worried about Ike. He left school at the end of the day with Craig and David.’ Except minus the period at the end, because though proper grammar was important to Kyle, he knew that if you put a period at the end of a message, it would come off as dismissive.  
Butters responded as soon as his long-winded text was finished, the both of them being the kind of people who prefer texting like you would an essay, ‘if you want, I can come to you; is it a odd thing for him to hang out with those two? Cause if there’s something odd that needs to be looked into, I can offer assistance there, as well.’  
Kyle was making himself a meal in the kitchen when he received Butters’ message. He finished up making his sandwich and slid the plate across the table to his favorite seat before leaning against the table and starting to type out his response. ‘I’m not worried, exactly. Ike’s smarter than most, I’m sure he wouldn’t do something that would put himself in a bad spot. Besides, he’s with David. Whatever trouble Can be expected from Craig, David would eliminate concerns in my mind.’  
Kyle ate his sandwiches in halves. Their house had no real meats since his brother was vegetarian, and his mom was kosher. The only time Kyle ate real meat was when he was at David’s family restaurant, and he loved the beefy burritos they served. Kyle had a rumbling in his pocket, which wasn’t a euphemism, as he checked his phone to see Butters’ response. ‘As long as you’re not worried. Maybe they're forming a new band.’  
Kyle gave a chuckle as he started typing away, ‘I don’t think David would ditch One Dark Eye for his bandmates ex, but I’ll keep it open as an option.’  
As Kyle washed the plate from which he’d eaten a sandwich off of, Butters rang, again. ‘I thought their name was One Dark Eyes?’  
‘That wouldn’t make sense.’

The wait for their meal had grown awkward after David shot Craig down. The three of them sat in silence, as their common ground for conversation fell away from beneath their feet. Craig and Ike were ignoring each other by looking at their phones. David was trained not to look at his phone at the table by his parents, and even being among friends, his father’s lesson prevented him. He tapped his roper cowboy-booted foot to the rhythm of the music filling the room from speakers above his head, but the music was too bad for it to be the only thing he could focus on. “I swear I’ve heard the phrase four times in the last ten minutes, and stadium country crap like this doesn’t last more than two and half minutes a pop, so that means I’ve heard between three and four songs use the phrase cowboy town one after the other. I need to go find where this music is coming from.” David stood, and Ike got up to let him out. Craig watched him walk away as Ike sat back down.  
Ike noticed Craig watching David walk away. Turning back to his phone, he could see the pissy mood he was in reflecting in his eyes. “Look, man, it’s… It’s like, what were you expecting? He’s busy enough as it is, with his band and with school… Plus, he plays instruments. He doesn’t know ‘beats.’”  
Craig gave a deep grunt and looked up from his phone, “Y’know, I don’t even know why you tagged along.”  
“Huh? Like. Like, to this place? Didn’t you invite me?”  
“I was asking David for help, not you.”  
“Oh. Kay. You’re not great at making friends, you know?”  
“Man, I didn’t come here to make friends. I came for a private question, and steak dinner. And I’m all out of questions.” Through the front doors came the first other customers in the roadhouse since the three character’s arrived. A large party of a dozen bikers came in, making their presence known, hooting and hollering their way into the store. Soon after the group of twelve came another eight, then fifteen more. Just beyond the wall separating the booths from the pit were packs of bikers, dressed in denim and leather, hooting and hollering in front of the stage, and its animatronic performers.  
“What just happened?” Ike asked, looking over the half wall separating him from them. From where he sat, he could see a woman getting pushed around between three tables of men and another table where two guys were just wrestling atop.  
“I think an episode of the Sons of Anarchy just walked through the door,” Craig said, leaning an arm over his chair and stretching his neck out to watch the scene while remaining inconspicuous. “Are those guys fighting or fucking?”  
“‘Scuuuse me,” A southern drawl stated behind Craig and Ike. The both of them turned to see two men standing above them. One looked like the actor David Cage hires to assault women in all of his games, and in front of him was the spitting image of Freddie Mercury in his white tank top, but with jeans instead of the white pants.  
“Oh my god,” Ike couldn’t help but blurt out at the sight of the legend.  
“I couldn’t help but notice you boys starin’,” The man spoke with his funny, possibly fake accent, both hands holding onto his belt like his pants would fall if he let go, “Maybe you’re feelin’ a little out of place.”  
“I was more so concerned with what the fuck your gang is doing with the woman, over there,” Craig pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the woman being hustled.  
“Oh, I wouldn’t concern yerself over her. She’s just part o’ the entertainment.”  
“I’m sorry, you came over here for a reason, is there some way we can help you?” Ike was quick to move the conversation forward before more insults could be thrown about.  
“Oh, why yes. Y’see, this establishment is now in the usage of the Astrologists!”  
“The what?” Craig snickered.  
Freddie gave a snap of his fingers, “Osiris, my jacket.” And the man behind him, apparently Osiris, produced a leather jacket as if from thin air. Holding it so that Craig and Ike could see the design on the back, they were met with the silhouette of a bull, ready to charge, horns reared, and the word Taurus in letterman symbols. “I am the leader of the Taurus tribe, already here are members of my gang, as well as riders from Pisces and Cancer.”  
“Where can I see a jacket with cancer written on it?” Craig joked.  
Freddie leaned in close to Craig, whispering as to be more menacing, “You can make fun all you want, but if you ain’t outta here in the next five minutes, you’ll be up on that stage puttin’ on a show, next, boy,” He said pointing to the animatronics on the stage.  
“What, like, a strip show?”  
Freddie stepped back out of Craig’s personal space and raised a finger, “One more joke, and you’re gonna find out.” And with that, the two of them walked away.  
Ike breathed a sigh of relief as they were walking away, “Oh, geez, that was scary.”  
“Wha, him? Psh, those two were nothing compared to the unused testosterone you’ll feel just walking around school.”  
“Tch,” Ike gave a smile, “Yeah. I gotta be honest, when I first saw him, I thought he didn’t look so tough. Y’know, on account of the whole looks and dresses just like Freddie Mercury thing.” From where Ike sat, he could see Freddie not ten paces away come to a dead stop. Osiris bumped into him and seemed to be asking what’s up from his gesturing before Freddie wheeled round to stare Ike dead in the eyes.  
Meanwhile, one minute earlier, in the doors of the kitchen across the Texas Roadhouse, David found himself deep in argument with the wait staff. The woman who had taken his order was blocking him from the kitchen. “I get it, Rusty, you’ve got this whole southern theme going, you don’t wanna have to mess with that, but my friends and I are the only ones in here, and this isn’t even good country music. Believe me, I know country, my dad used to play the accordion in a corrido band, and he loved Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, all the country greats, but this? This isn’t real country.”  
“Look, sweety, I get that you don’t like the music, but we got a clientele that don’t get too happy when we go… Mixin’ up the atmosphere.”  
“Alright, look, I don’t wanna make myself a problem, I understand if there’s a protocol in place, I work in a restaurant, too, but if there’s just anything you can do, please, let me know. It’d make the next half hour of my life a lot more pleasant.”  
The woman looked to the kitchen behind her, then back to David, “Look, I can at least ask the chef. I wouldn’t expect much of it, but if it’ll help-”  
“Thank you, no, it really would be great,” David quickly started offering her praise.  
“Can I get a name for him?”  
“David Rodriguez.”  
The woman slowly narrowed his eyes at David, and slowing her southern drawl to a southern crawl, repeated, “Daaahhhhh-Veeeeed…” and slowly slid away from him the saloon flapping doors they had on their kitchen. David was left standing in anxious and backed away from the kitchen.  
Reentering the floor, he could two steps below him a room filled with bikers beating on one another. Leather jackets emblazoned with Crabs and bulls, as well as a burlier pair wearing twin koi fish, like yin and yen on their jackets, who sat in a corner, each nursing a beer.  
David slowly scanned the room, noting the woman who's been pushed up on to a table, with six men dancing around her, joined in hand and chanting derogatorily, a man fresh out of a fight, for some reason his pants half pulled off, yelling at the man unconscious on the ground. “What in Hell?” He whispered to himself. David told himself walking down the two steps from the kitchen onto the floor, “Just tuning into the wild side of life,” He thought was funny as he pushing himself into the crowd.  
The waitress who’d spoken with David ran into the kitchen, where a half dozen people were cooking away. One of them looked up with his thick black mustache and saw the girl coming his way, “‘Ey, no runnin’ in the kitchen, those boys out there already knocked out one of our waiters and stole a waitress!”  
The woman came and grabbed him by the shoulders and pulling him in close, “Don’t worry! David Rodriguez is here!”  
“Hawh!” The man looked to the saloon doors in awe, “The man what kicked in the teeth o’ the Damned!?”  
The group of men encircling the waitress on the table cooed and gnarled as they spun around her before David pushed the crowd to stand before their table. The girl on the table cried out, “Seriously, this is not okay, you guys! Please, someone help!”  
David stomped his foot, “Hey! Excuse me, gentleman, but what do you think you’re doing with the staff?”  
The six stopped their merry chanting and turned to David, who was wearing jeans as well. One of them practically screamed, “David?”  
David realized the man to have recognized him was his teacher, “Mr. Sycophant?” Both groups were left silent for a moment while Craig pulled out his phone raising it to snag a photo of his racist biker teacher, but as he held it in the air, a man put a hand in front of its lens, pushing David back.  
David didn’t let the man throw him off balance as he stepped back pulling his precious phone to his chest. Looking up at the man who’d pushed him met David with a man clad in leather and a front row of teeth made of gold engraved to say “Bad,” which was not evenly centered, being three letters. “Boy, you best not mess with one Astrologist. You challenge the zodiac, spend the rest of your life watchin’ your back.”  
“Astrologists? Is there some kind of meeting for worshippers of pseudo-science I wasn’t aware of?” David joked. The man didn’t like jokes, which David was tipped off to by the way he cracked his knuckles.  
David looked past the man acting intimidating to the girl, now huddled atop the table, “Please help,” She called out to David, “I don’t even like this job, it pays minimal, and I hate doing the stupid accent.”  
David gave a sigh, “Looks like we’re gonna have to get all Feng Shui,” David told himself.  
“You know Feng Shui is a pseudoscience, as well, and that it has nothing to do with martial arts, right?” Mr. Sycophant told David in a know it all tone that David was familiar with as his group of six joined the gold-toothed bad man in encircling David, ready to start a brawl.  
“This one’s been a long time coming.” Just as David prepared himself for the onslaught, the speakers suddenly changed to blast the guitar strums symbolic of the start Bennie and Jets.  
Just across the room, Ike found himself being held by the hoodie, Freddie Mercury yelling in his face, “How dare you compare me to that queer!” Not wanting to use the real word, because he felt he knew the reader.  
“Please, sir!” Ike pleaded, “There’s no need for name calling!”  
“What, do you think I’m gonna tease you to death? Once I wrap your flesh around one o’ them animatronic robots, you won't care nothin’ bout no Freddie Mercury,” Freddie explained. But with the end of his explanation, he could already feel a firm grip on his knife-wielding hand. Looking over his shoulder he could see Craig staring at him, squeezing so tight he lost his grip on the blade, but Craig still held the knife with his hand for him.  
“Y’see, you could have just said that instead of playing up the mystique,” Craig told him as he twisted his arm out of place, reaching the knife all the way behind him into Osiris, watching his back. The both of them screamed in pain as Craig let go of Freddie’s arm, taking him by the flattened hair and bashing his head against the table, reeling it back just as fast, now with less conscious. “Of course, I see how it’s less intimidating to just explain it like that, so I guess I shouldn’t complain all that much.” And with that, Craig let him fall to the floor unconscious. Craig looked over the half wall(I think what I’m thinking of might be called a banister, but that’s more so for stairs, so I’m just gonna keep calling it a half wall), and saw David fighting off a dozen bikers by himself. Craig ducked instinctively as Osiris’ screams stopped, hinting him to the knife swung just over his head as he moved out of the way just in time. While still low, Craig gut punched Osiris, pushing him back, knife falling to the floor; jumping his whole body on eye level with Osiris, Craig swung his leg across the side of Osiris’ head, knocking him to the ground with his boss.  
Craig picked the knife off the ground and turned to Ike, “Wait here, I’m gonna go help David take out the trash,” and with that, jumped over the half wall into the mess of the pit. Ike clambered to the banister and watched Craig go punching and kicking into the crowd.  
Nearest to the stage of animatronic performers, bikers were still unaware of the powwow ten feet back and making their way closer to the stage. As Mississippi Queen began, one of the men shouted, “You’re paid to play country,” and threw a beer bottle at the singer, bonking him in the head and causing him to fall down.  
“No. Bo-bot.” A fellow robot called out to his fallen leader in a perfectly monotone voice, extending a mechanical arm as far as his joints would allow, about three inches.  
“It is fine, Lynyrd Skynet. He is right.” Bo-bot calmed his bassist counterpart.  
“But we are not paid.” Lynyrd Skynet retorted.  
“No. We are made to play. This is our duty,” Bo-Bot told his partner, as he clambered off the ground back to his microphone that doesn’t actually create actual music, since they are just decorations, “The music must go on. 2. 3. 4.” And with that, the band continued to pretend to play.  
The biker who had thrown the bottle leaned over to the two men he sat with, the massive Koi Fish brothers, and chuckled, “They think they’re people,” He joked, but the men were unamused, continuing to sit in silence, one taking a sip from his drink. Suddenly, the three of them were made aware of the bar fight as a man’s limp body was tossed over the head of the puny biker, who covered his head in fear as the body slammed against their table, knocking beer and bottle to the floor.  
The Koi Fish brothers looked to see the brawl going down in front of them, David and Craig kicking their way through the crowd. David throat punched one man, who stumbled away holding onto his throat. He then turned to see Mr. Sycophant about to smash a bottle on his head, but he blocked the swing, taking hold of Sycophant’s arm with one hand and the bottle with the other, pulling it away from Sycophant and smashing it against the next guy to come running at him. As that guy fell to the floor, David twisted Mr. Sycophant’s arm behind his back and pulled Mr. Sycophant up against his side, pulling out his phone and snapping a selfie of the two of them as fast as possible. Putting his phone back into his pocket, David pushed the Sycophant into another biker who happened to be fighting Craig.  
Craig’s current challenger now off balance and distracted with Mr. Sycophant, He reached around and grabbed the teacher’s head and bashed it against the other biker’s. The both of them fell to the floor. He looked at them on the floor, then looked up at David, “I think I know this guy from somewhere.”  
“Huh? Oh, naw, that’s, um… Hey, thanks for helping out,” David changed the subject, “You wanna take ‘em back to back?”  
“Nahh, that sounds stupid. I’m just gonna attack them in this direction,” Craig pointed his foes out with the head of a man a foot shorter than him, trying to squirm away from his clutch. “Come on,” He told the smaller man, “We’re going for a ride,” And he started swinging the smaller man by his arm, making him lose control of his motion, running to keep up before being flung towards the crowd of waiting bikers.  
“Alright, well, fine. I can handle these guys by myself anyway,” David turned and standing behind him were the Yin and Yen, glaring down at him, like “Los Gigantes,” David whispered to himself. One cracked his neck in both directions as his brother stepped for and gave a great big clobbering swing right at David.

Kyle sat around his living room, waiting for his brother. He watched When Mrs. Broflovski returned and had questions about where Ike was, but Kyle dissuaded any worries. Now, three hours had past since school ended, and Kyle was the only one worrying. Looking at his phone, Kyle had sent Ike two texts that hour asking his whereabouts. He thought it was about time to call.  
Phone to ear, Kyle listened to it buzz on for a half minute before, “Hey, brown cow, what’s up?”  
“Oh, hey, spots, nothing,” Sharing in their brotherly code, “You’re with David and Craig, right?” He asked Ike, pulling at his hair nervously.  
“Oh yeah, they're both really cool guys!” Ike told him, enthusiastically shout into the phone. It sounded to Kyle like he was moving around a lot in a crowded place  
“Oh, that’s good to hear! I know David’s really cool. I just wanted to know, where did you guys go?”  
“Oh, we went out to get a meal together, we’re just a town over at this old-fashioned roadhouse.”  
“Kay, well, it’s been a few hours do you know when you guys are gonna get back?”  
“Well, umm… Well you see, we’re still at the restaurant. Umm… Craig had some problems with these other people at the restaurant, So we got all held up,”  
“Jesus Christ, did Craig start another beef?” Kyle sighed, knowing how things tend to go with Craig, especially lately.  
“Oh, no no, this is all going to be very professional, This guy’s got a professional, he’s on his way to talk to us, and we’ll be getting a ride home, soon, I’d say in, like, an hour.  
“Were you guys in a wreck!?” Kyle started pulling at his hair  
“Oh, yeah, Craig’s car is all kinds of fucked up, right now, his front window’s shattered, his wheel is flat,” The sound of people was now gone for Kyle.  
“That sounds more like someone busted his car up than a collision.”  
“Yeah…” Kyle was left waiting for the story to go on, but was left wonting.  
“Who were all those people, back there?” Kyle decided to remember  
“Oh just some people at the bar. There are a lot of cool people, we’re getting a ride home with our waitress. She’s really nice, I think she’s into David, which is weird, cause she’s, like, so much older, ya know?”  
“No, I don’t,” Kyle responded passively, but in an aggressive tone. “Just be careful getting hope. Atom heart mother is going to be pissed if you’re not in the house by midnight. And be careful, I know that roadhouse, and that areas got a bunch of gangs in it.”  
“You don’t say.”

Ike walked back into the diner. The brawl had lasted only ten minutes, but it was soon after Craig and his friends realized the severity of the situation, ten zodiac tribes still remained after their elimination of the Koi brothers and Taurus’ Tribe, Taurus being Freddie’s adoptive biker name.  
Upon the stage, cleared of its animatronics, stood David Rodriguez, hair primped up and curly, and with curly extensions in back to make it a mullet. He paced across the stage, wearing Taurus’ leather jacket, their identifying name covered with red spray paint, now just a solid bull. He also tore a sleeve off and someone had stitched on a Texas license plate taken from the wall. He faced a room of chef, waiters and waitresses, and Craig and Ike. In the corner, the robotic instrumentalists stood, now truly autonomous, bulked up with spare parts that made them look like a punk rock star fox villains, one with an led vizor for eyes that had a small red dot buzzing across, another with a line of functioning metal cutting drill bits going down from the top of his head to the base of his removed hairline, like a maiming mohawk.  
David paced across the stage in front of his three rows of soldiers. “Alright. So, we expect an army to come upon this establishment within the next twenty minutes,” He announced to his audience huddled before him, some smoking their last, some praying for safety through this fight, “Their numbers are projected to be over a hundred, each armed, possibly with firearms. It is highly unlikely we will all walk away from this alive. But, for the best chance of survival, you must simply remember three things:” And he raised his first finger, “One. We are brothers in this!” He clenched his fists, “Together, we stand united as food service workers! We’re the most premium force in this country; the true backbone, and when we come together, there isn’t a force that can stop us. Just look at what you’ve accomplished, already! Bernie, you created artificial intelligence!”  
David pointed to the mustachioed chef in his forties holding a wrench in one hand, leaned back in his chair, body flat as a plank, arms crossed, cigarette about to fall out of his house, who spoke barely moving his lips, “Knew that masters in engineerin’ would come in handy.”  
“Debby!” He pointed to the waitress in high school, “You made my hair look like Brock Sampson’s! I don’t even know how!”  
“She made mine look like Josuke Higashikata’s! But, like, part 8 Josuke, but not new Josuke, the one who looks like old josuke.”  
“It’s a pompadour,” Debby told Ike.  
“Yes! Thank you!” Ike showed her appreciation for the hairdo.  
“Why didn’t I get a fancy eighties haircut?” Craig asked, all sour.  
“Your hair is like an inch at its longest, what am I s’posed to do with that, shave your name in the back?”  
“Focus please?” David waited for everyone to return their attention to him. “Thank you. Anyway, together, we stand as brothers!” David assured them, pumping his clenched fists in the air. He then immediately ceased his fist pumping, “Two. We do not let them inside. This fight cannot take place within this establishment. If it does, there won’t be a Roadhouse for us to defend by the end of the night. If one of the makes a break for the door, you press your emergency buzzer, Debbie Ike, and Automatons three and four are ready to stop whoever breaks in. The automatons stand as sentries, with no method of prosecution by law, because they are only machines. As such, they have been armed with automatic weapons from the nearby gun store that was next door, as to best utilize the Texas Roadhouse market.”  
“I hold the power,” Lynyrd Skynet proclaimed in a far deeper synthesized voice, holding up his weapon.  
“Number three. Be nice.”  
With a perfect impression of Hank Hill, a rotund chef in the back row stated, “Scuse me for speakin’ outta turn, but what?”  
“I truly believe that with two killer robots working the front line, and the forces we have before us, we can win. But you cannot be the first to strike. If we start the assault, we might win the battle, but they win the lawsuit. What argument can we have against them? They’re an army of white men in their forties, and this isn’t a chain restaurant, they have the money to win any suit. Our only possible argument is self-defense. Believe me, I get in fights like this all the time. The courts aren’t in our favor, they’ve got all kinds of biases that can’t be avoided, no matter who's on the jury. I mean, there’s variance depending on the makeup of the jury, but this is wading into the question ‘can there be an unbiased jury?’ the answer being ‘probably not,’ in the simple, but that’s not actually important, right now, what is important is that I’m brown, their white, and if we end this night with blood on our hands, it’s going to have been a pyrrhic victory.”  
“I hear that, eh, hermano?” A man in the crowd with a sombrero and a bushy mustache said, playing up a Spanish accent.  
David just stared at the man for a while before asking, “Gerald, why are you doing a Mexican Accent?”  
“It’s Herald!” Gerald enthusiastically pumped his fist, “And I ama from Mexico!” Mexico pronounced in the American manner.  
“Or Italy, Waylon,” David turned to the owner of the Roadhouse, “Why is Gerald pretending to be a Mexican chef?”  
“Well, it’s just his thing. He walked in, one day, lookin’ for a job, and when he realized we were Country themed, he said he could ‘do a Mexican chef,’” Waylon explained with quotation marks. “Everyday he comes into work he brings that big sombrero, even though he’s not allowed to wear it while working,” he added.  
“Wow. Wow, that is oodles of awful. Shit, and I just called us brothers.”  
With the end of David’s inspirational speech, Craig approached Ike from across the room, “Ike, can we have our own sidebar, for a moment?”  
“Yeah, sure thing, man,” Ike agreed as Craig beckoned him away from the rest of the group over to a more private table. “What ‘s up?”  
“I wanted to say that in these past three hours of events, all that help you gave, going around, designing the outside architectural structures to fortify the building, and holding up the gun store have really helped me to see I was wrong to be so dismissive towards you earlier,” Craig apologized to his new accomplice.  
“Oh, I know these past few hours have been rough Craig, you don’t have to feel bad if you were a bit standoffish at the start of this all-”  
“No, but I do feel bad,” Craig cut him off. “You’re alright, Ike. I can’t wait to see you on the other side of this fight, and I hope that after this is all done, you would do me the honor of learning to make music from you.” He extended a hand to be shaken.  
Ike looked down at his hand, back up to Craig’s eyes, and smiled, “The honor would be mine.”

David, Craig, and Rusty stood at the edge of the roadhouse’s roof. They stared at the sun setting over the distant mountains as night came upon them. None of them looked away from the Sun if it could be the last time they saw it. “So you guys really do this a lot?” Rusty asked them.  
“Oh yeah, things like this happen a lot in our town,” David explained. “Pretty much everything that occurs around our town is driven to the extreme. Eventually, we all decided to either stop asking questions, or fight our way through issues.”  
“That seems like an unhealthy way of going through life, just fighting your way through all of life’s challenges,” Rusty tried arguing with them.  
“Eh, it’s not like we experience consequences for our actions,” Craig cut in. “Things just happen, and then we move on. You don’t even really care, after see enough things occur without consequence.”  
“So, what, Nihilism?” Rusty whipped her head at them.  
“Works for Rick and Morty,” Craig pointed out.  
“It’s not that everything's without consequence. It’s just that reality seems fake most of the time. So you gotta hold onto what feels real. And a lotta the people who happen to come picking a fight seem unreal people. The world makes ‘em disposable, and so they are,” David attempted to explain.  
“Speaking of unreal,” Craig looked off to the just setting and saw from behind the trees, down the main road, a new light shined. Coming into view, the army of bikers neared, going maybe five miles an hour, all packed tightly together. They drove up till about three hundred feet away. In the front row, a man stood up. He wore a lion’s head as a helmet and had some kind of either cape or long scarf wrapped around his arm, likely because it was intended to be blowing behind him when he was going fast enough, but had to go five miles and didn’t want it getting stuck in the tires. He untangled his cape, which unfortunately took a minute, but when he was already, he stepped out in front of his headlight and tilted it up a bit to best create a silhouette of his head. He extended his arm out, and on command, the biker at his right revved up and moved out in front, putting a megaphone into this tiger-headed man’s hand, before pulling around and casting a second light on the man’s side. He then hopped off his bike and properly adjusted the light, pushed the bike a few inches forward, readjusted the light, and then scurried behind his bike.  
Tiger Head put the megaphone up to his mask and announced, “To the employees of Texas Roadhouse. I extend this offer: Just walk away. We only want those two who have usurped us from our rightful land. This restaurant is the property of the Astrologists, and these two have held us from our yearly meeting ground. You know the power we have across the state. Among our ranks are many powerful lawyers, well-respected businessmen, friends of people in high places. Astrologists are not an enemy you want to make. If you leave now, though, all we shall do is dismantle your structure. As long as you leave those two for us. These to criminals shall be ours for atonement. What do you say?”  
David turned to Rusty, “You know, he’s right. For all we say this has no real consequence, this could end up coming back to bite you. Likely legally.”  
“But, if you want, we can show you what it’s like to live in this nihilistic world of ours,” Craig chimed in, holding up a spiked baseball bat.  
Rusty looked out at the small army of men on motorcycles before her. “Let’s end this.”  
“Alright,” Craig leaned over the side the metal railing built into the side of the suped-up roadhouse, it’s outside turned from a modest structure, slightly suffering from mildew to a bulking barricade, and called down to the robotics guards at the front lines, “Bo-Bot!”  
“Roger.” Bo-Bot lifted his weapon to the ready.  
“The leader’s bike!”  
“Roger Roger.” There were three seconds of Terminator vision as Bo-Bot zoomed his visor eye at Tiger Head. He pulled the butt of his gun to his shoulder and fired a single bullet that went right through the stomach of Tiger Head, and just as the head Astrologist began to fall back, the cries of Freddie Mercury seemed to ring into night, some suggestion them to be from the restaurant as Ogre Battle began to play, some saying it was Tiger Head himself, but before he could hit the ground, Bo-Bot’s bullet pulled out of him, and went on, undeterred by the adjusting forces of Tiger Head’s body, moving onward to the oil tanker of his bike. From the roof of the Texas Roadhouse, the explosion was massive, as over a hundred motorcycles, packed in close together for intimidation were caught in the ensuing chain reaction, a massive wave of heat hitting the three atop the restaurant, the flames burning brightly into the night.

After reporting a massive bike accident outside the restaurant, and saying goodbye to their new friends, learning the automatons would go on to pursue a music career on the road, promising to bring new meaning to the genre, metal, The strange gang departed with Rusty for home. On the drive, she played Waylon Jennings. Ike slept in the back. He used Craig’s leg like a pillow, and Craig pet his head while he slept, about to fall asleep himself, smoking out the window of the car with headphones in.  
David got to sit in the front seat, and he just stared at the dark road in front of him. He was so spaced out, he didn’t even speak a word until he started seeing houses, again, and realized they were back in town. “Oh, hey, we’re back,” He whispered, as not to disturb his friends in the back. “I think… Yeah, we’re gonna be closest to Ike’s first. Then, we’re gonna come up to Craig’s. We can drop them off one after another.”  
“Kay,” Rusty complied. They came upon their first stop within minutes. David tried shaking Ike awake, but it was no good.  
“Yo, what are you doin’?” Craig pulled his headphones out and looked at David.  
“Tryin’ to wake Ike?”  
“Why are you talking with the Southern Drawl?” Craig asked David.  
“Why are you?”  
David ended up carrying Ike in. He was too tuckered out from the spoils of war. David pushed Ike’s door open as carefully as possible. Placing him down in his bed, David crept back out into the hall, closing the door behind him. He took a stiff inhale and sighed, scratching the back of his head. As he turned, he saw Kyle standing in the door of his room. David slammed up against Ike’s door, and Ike finally woke up in his room, thinking there a knock at the door. “So. You guys went out to the roadhouse past Orange County, Ike tells me?”  
“Yeah.” David pushed off the door and held his hands behind his back. “Uh, it was Craig’s idea. Ike just sorta… Tagged along.”  
“Aww... “ Ike lowered his head back to his pillow, defeated.  
“Mmmm. Who was it that wrecked Craig’s car?”  
“Oh, just some creepy guy who didn’t like Craig making fun of him in the bar. Wasn’t any trouble. His car’ll be towed back in the mornin’-ng. What are you still doing up?”  
Kyle raised his phone so David could see, “It’s only nine thirty. The only person asleep at that time in this home is mom.”  
“Wow. Time has really gotten away from me.”  
“Uh huh. You alright?”  
“Oh yeah, why do you ask?”  
“You got a big back eye, and your hair looks like Patrick Swazy’s.”  
David had forgotten about that, and when he instinctively reached to cover his face, smacked his eye, “Agh! Oh, yeah. Hahah.” David’s whisper laugh sounded the most insincere. Kyle raised his forehead, showing a look of worry. “No, no I’m fine.” David put his hands up defensively and started moving around the door, covering his face with his hands.  
“When was the last time you came over?” Kyle asked him, causing him to stop walking away. This one day’s taken two chapters, Jesus Christ.  
David turned back to Kyle, “Look, I’m sorry.”  
“I don’t think you’ve been over here since I was dating Stan. How long ago must it have been?”  
“Look, I should probably just go,” David started heading down the stairs.  
“Damn it, David, I’m not actually mad,” Kyle had some trouble keeping his voice down, now heading for the stairs after David. “We stopped being friends for no reason.”  
David turned back around, “We didn’t stop being friends. I never wanted you to stop being my friend.” David walked closer to Kyle. “I… I’m very used to people walking in and out of my life. That’s how things go when you move around a lot as a kid. Once we stopped hanging out, I guess I didn’t know when to come back in. There never seemed to be a right time.”  
Kyle helped close the distance, stepping closer, “It’s never too late.”  
David stared into Kyle’s eyes. It was hard cause of the blood swelling into one of them, tho. But at that moment they stared at one another, the two of them a foot away from one another, David squeezing the back of the couch tightly, ready to give in and embrace Kyle. But he continued to fight, that night. “Then maybe tomorrow. I think there’s something I have to take care of, tonight. And I don’t wanna leave Craig waiting.”  
Kyle just stared at him for a moment. He pulled his gaze away, “Fine. Tomorrow.” Suddenly, Kyle felt the warm embrace of David. He opened his eyes and realized he was wrapped in his arms.  
“I can’t wait. I’ll text you as soon as I wake up,” David let him go and started backing away. As he opened the door and stepped out, he waved goodbye with a smile. Kyle didn’t know if he should smile back or not, and just stared at him and waved back. David shut the door behind him and left Kyle very confused. 

Rusty and David drove up in front of David’s house. “Ah, finally here.” David turned to Rusty. “Hey, I really appreciate the ride home.”  
“Oh, come on. You’re a real old school hero. Like John Wayne, or Patrick Swayze. You deserve a reward,” Rusty told him, in a soft, soothing voice.  
“Thanks, Rusty. It’s been really great getting to know you,” and David tried opening the door, but it wouldn’t unlock. It was one of those minivan locks that disappears into the door.  
“Come on. Isn’t there one more eighties action cliche to live out?” Rusty slipped a hand onto David’s leg.  
David tensed up his whole lower half, “Rusty. I-I’m only eighteen.”  
“Oh, David,” Rusty drew closer. David had been staring longingly at his house, but now, feeling the signs of her close proximity, couldn’t help but turn around. She was inches from his face as she whispered to him, “Everything you did, you're more of a man than any I’ve met before,” And she pressed her lips against his. David panicked, eyes flickering around for a sign of help.  
Her hand had made its way to David’s zipper, and David could feel her fumbling around. But as she started working away, there came the realization that this wasn’t working. She pulled her lips away and finally made eye contact with David and realized how this had gone wrong. “Oh. Oh my god, are you?”

It took about another ten minutes for David to get out of the car. The two of them ended up in a conversation, where David had to apologize for being gay. He stood outside the car and watched as Rusty drove off, glad the night was over. He turned to face his home, and then looked up and down the street. When Craig had left, he’d asked him for a gift. He removed that gift from his shirt pocket, perfectly intact: one bummed cigarette. He sat in front of his house, smoking the day away. “Long one,” He thought. “Nothing matter, life is a nightmare,” he told himself next, and then pushed away some of the painful thoughts, like all the death and the uncomfortable encounters. “Not done, yet. Got some more work that’s got to be done.


	7. EP

“Alright, guys. Before we call it a rap, I think there’s a serious issue we should discuss before we release this beast on the world.” David was sitting backward in his too large chair like a cool guy, looking at Tweek and Kenny.   
“David, it’s been a rough enough session, I’m looking to wrap this up, quick,” Kenny told David, looking to fall asleep in the restaurant The three of them were all on pins and needles meeting up, lately, on account of Karen being one of Tweek’s two new employees, bringing his staff up to a bare minimum earning the bare minimum. Kenny had started holding his rage to David over the matter since it was his and Karen’s plan, but the rage split onto Tweek over the matter, as well. And tensions had been high in general amongst the group.  
“This isn’t anything personal,” David assured the both of them, “But we to discuss something before we can release this EP. We gotta talk about the elephant in the room.”  
Kenny looked about for an elephant, “What do you mean?”  
“We need a name we can actually show other people. One we’d all be proud to have on top of this cover.”  
“What's wrong with one dark eyes?”  
“Well,” Tweek scratched at his arm, looking at the ground, “I’m the only one with the heterochromia, and it doesn’t even really make sense, grammatically.”  
“Thank you, Tweek,” David bowed his head just a bit to Tweek. “Our name should be something representative of us all. I’m thinking it should still be reflective of how we’re unique as a band.”  
“Then how about Picky Eaters? Takes into account how we’re all food service,” Kenny exhaustively suggested.  
“Uh-I like it. It’s kind of creative and funny,” Tweek chimed in.  
“It’s not about sounding funny,” David shot them both down, “Ghostface Killah wasn’t remembered for having his name laughed at!”  
“Oh god, did Ghostface Killah die!?” Tweek shrieked.  
“What? Oh, no, sorry.”  
“Oh god, you can’t scare me like that. We can’t be losing more Wu-Tang,” Tweek breathed a sigh of relief.  
“Yeah, I dunno why I thought, um…” David hopped out of his seat”Look, two nights ago, I saw a group of animatronic robots gain sentience, and the first thing this one looking like sixties John Bonham does is pick up an electric guitar and declare themselves the Automatic Assault Weapons. And now, they’re out in the world living the lives of rock stars, with a side job as crime fighters like the goddamn ninja turtles.” David looked back and forth from Tweek to Kenny, “And they had every ability, every right to take the name Automatons! Yet they still had a cooler name.”  
“Well, why don’t we just take the name automatons?” Tweek suggested.  
“We’re a rock and roll band! Not some electronic group. We need something that’s actually kick ass, like Jane’s Addiction. That’s a name that works so well, the music is Jane’s Addiction!” David’s voice cracked just thinking of the significance of the name to a band. Bob Dylan, Jane’s Addiction, De La Soul is Dead, these words seemed to flow together perfectly, each with examples of perfect albums. And how Gorillaz, his favorite band, could have never had a perfect album. “That accursed Z.” David sat himself down.  
“Oh, it’s his theory of naming, again,” Kenny blew it off.  
“No!” David pointed to Kenny. “I knew this day would come. I knew it would, and I perfected my theory of Phonetics!” David reached into the bag he had cast over the back of the chair and pulled out a journal. He raised it to the sky for both to see and the slammed it down on the table in front of him with a pen. “We are going to list this out. I have a prepared list of options, and I’m looking forward to your input on this!”  
Kenny raised his hand and waited for David to call on him. David respected his request and waved to him the floor. “Yes, it has no weight when you swear, because you already swear so much.”  
“Right. Anyway, let’s review some of my options.”

Atlanta title drop, just big zoom on Kenny asleep upon the tabletop, cut into the desk with a pen, the phrase “the Parodies.” Then jump a week into the future:   
Kenny’s house had a weirdly triangle-shaped back patio, A right   
The album itself, with it’s funky hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil cover, had glaring flaws. Tweek, Kenny and David might’ve been gifted in each of their own styles, but what they wanted from the album seemed to change from four years together and only now having launched something of their own. the three of them all had different ideas for the band. Tweek took a wholly unique approach to songwriting, in which he would play long, tangential piano melodies That was the same night killing one hundred men in an automotive accident. A right angle triangle that stretched to an angled so acute you’d cut your leg on it stacked on a two-foot rectangle. No overhang, no tree, no shade in the back but an old umbrella in the middle of the yard. On a lawn chair sitting at the fat end of the hypotenuse, Kevin McCormick was sitting with a blunt. Kenny came out the back door and just stared at him with a sigh. He approached with his hands in his coat pockets.   
Seeing, him Kevin pulled out the cigarillo, “You know what I find crazy? How Lost and Found isn’t recognized as a system of legal thievery. I feel like we need to have a written policy that if you find something that’s been lost, it should count as your property from then on.”  
What are you talking about, Kevin?” Kenny came and sat next to his brother. He was then offered a turn with the blunt. He picked it out of Kevin’s offering hand.  
“So last week, I was walking in the park and found a phone. Guessed the password on the first try, and like a gentleman, stored all of their information on the cloud and then delete it,” Kevin snapped his fingers leaning back in his chair and pointed at the joint repeatedly until Kenny rolled his eyes and returned it, “I’m selling it that night, I’m eating, I eat the next day, the day after that, I’m being charged by the owner. I don’t even know how they found me!”  
“Right,” Kenny blew his nose and gave a “Tsk. So Kev, you back for money? Is that it?” Kenny shook his head. This was the most common reason Kevin came home, for a lack of funds.  
Kevin was pretty much Kenny in terms of face, except with his father’s brown hair that came in unevenly along his jawline and neck. He was also generally dirtier. In comparison with Kenny, who if you saw wearing his jacket, you’d assume he doesn’t have money for a lot of clothes, Kevin, you could look at and assume he’s sleeping in a ditch; face dirty, teeth stained forever yellow, and coming out in places. “Nah, I know better than to bark up that tree. Naw, I’m back for the meantime.”  
“What’s up? You hear about the band, looking to get back in while the gettings good? You wanna manage me?”  
Kevin puffed out smoke, “What? You’re in a band?”  
Kenny sat up in his chair, “Please, you don’t know about my band?” He sounded insulted.  
“Sorry, bro. But that’s cool, man! Makin’ your way in the world. What, you guys looking to make it big?”  
“Ehm,” Kenny took the weed cigarette, “We’re waiting to see whether our prospects grow. I’m in a group with a major realist and a catastrophic thinker, so I’m kind of the only one that really believes in us, I guess.”  
“Cheh. Sounds like same old same old to me. But I bet you guys don’t sound too bad. I know you always had that knack for music. I believe in you on this.”  
“Thanks. That… Kind of means something coming from you.” Kenny reflected on his relationship with his brother. His emotions skewed what it meant to hear his brother affirming his support for his brother’s dreams. “I guess that makes you the last person to say it,” Kenny added. He pushed back to see if it would give way to a less supportive response.  
“Bet I’m supporting you before dad.”  
“Fair,” Kenny couldn’t argue. To Karen, maybe their father leaving could have actually created scars, but both Kevin and Kenny saw their dad as a joke. A kind that’s funny in the same way the ratio of black students to black teachers in inner city schools, or when you’re watching youtube at two A.M., or television, if you’re still into that, and see those ads with heavily political messages that are all directed at Republicans worried that Democrats are planning to destroy the world like Pinky and the Brain. These are my actual favorite ads, and they end up being more entertaining than the actual video I’m trying to view at three A.M., because this seventy-year-old man will have some wack job explanation for you about how God created good and evil, and their slogan is that you can become smarter in five minutes, cause that’s how long their videos are, and the best part, the best thing about this one on morality, is that every point they make isn’t actually factual, and I can prove this by explaining how they confused evolution with progress, and can’t say that since we once accepted slavery, we might change as a society to accept it, again, because one, that’s known as regressing, two, no one’s reconsidering slavery, so that’s not a concern, and three, you’re a philosophy major, sir; your career requires fewer facts than a good lawyer. And I know I said one thing was the best, already, but this old man called Hitler “Himmler.” And the video editor put the word Himmler in front of my eyes, and I swear to Christ, it is so much fun just whisper yelling at my phone at two AM at weird old racists who think we might be reconsidering slavery as a positive means of labor, it is such a time. How is this tangent important; take all the horrible sentiments I just made, apply those ideals to the most important person in your childhood, and remove the degree for the fakest practition from their wall, and then live under them for twelve years, and instead of being able to yell in the faces of that old man, you have to scream your transgressions into your pillow.  
Kevin and Kenny both knew their dad was an asshole. Kevin might have shared in some of those wackjob political views, but their dad was a bully to the both of them and the rest of their family. “So, bro. How ‘bout it. You gonna let me back into the house?”  
“Oh, right,” Kenny shook himself out of his own world back to his brother staring at him. He had the blunt hanging out of his mouth and little compassion in his eyes as he stared waiting for his response. His glare added pressure to Kenny’s decision making. “I-I’m sorry, bro. Like, you can definitely stay the night. But I’m looking to rent that room of yours out. The family needs all the money it can get.”  
Kevin continued glaring at Kenny, then slid closer to him, “Kenny, you gotta realize somethin’. We’re family. We can’t turn on each other. Not in these days when no one else is looking out for us but each other.”  
“Kevin, last time you were here, you turned against the family,” Kenny stated as calmly as possible. “Maybe mom can find it in her heart to forgive you, but I don’t know if I can.”  
Kevin grew intense, “What about Karen?” he asked in a quiet grumble.  
“You hit her, that’s when you turned against the family. You were the first person to hit her.”  
“Do you think she still cares about that? I’m sure she misses me just as much as mom.”  
“I’m not saying she doesn’t miss. I’m saying I now know you are a threat to her. I don’t want to exacerbate the situation, though. So I’m working to diffuse these concerns of mine. So I’m trying to talk to you reasonably, and give you a reasonable deal. Sleep on it. Make peace with it.”

I’m very tired. An EP was now out in the world, with fresh cover art that had been waiting a half year for this album’s launch. Cover art that had been dreamed up by the crew.  
Now, it’s not all that important a detail, because it’s not going to have any effect on the plot, but it’s important to me that you have a strong visual comprehension of this album cover. You see, no member of the band has an artistic ability; none of them have ever been the kind to pick up a pencil and have something in their mind they think to put on the page other than words. This is very common, everyone thinks in different ways and has their own natural proficiencies, and Tweek, Kenny, and David are all highly skilled auditory learners. This isn’t important to the story, but I just wanna let all you readers know, you, too, have your own proficiencies, but if you want there’s nothing that says you can’t go and improve your music skills if you’re an artist. To best simplify different learning types, think of the ability structure for Hunter X Hunter, or Pokemon since they are the exact same rock paper scissor format. You have this natural proficiency in writing, but with dedication, you can become an amazing artist.  
None of this matters, tho, cause none of these three characters give a shit about artistry. Except for Kenny, who had started getting really into rap, and as such, started drawing a bunch of Doctor Dooms and Spartan masks. And he said he wanted to do the cover. But when he realized he was still awful at drawing, because of the rock paper scissor learning structure. So the album cover started out as a sketch of three robot faced squiggly individuals. And with the thought that this wasn’t good enough for his friends running through his mind, Kenny sought out a better cover. The final product was very similar to the initial work, but required far more labor, as Kenny had to go about finding, and in the end stealing high-quality masks for the edgiest photo shoot South Park had ever seen. Tweek and David stood on one side of an open casket, Kenny on the other, and within lied a five-foot statue of Paul Bunyan, his axe removed from his hands to make it look like he was lying there peacefully. The look didn’t work with his big smiling head, so Kenny took a real axe to the fake head. He then realized it was hollow within, as many had theorized of the Paul Bunyan statue standing in front of the pancake house inside the local mall, and Kenny rightfully put Paul’s head atop his own, and wore it like a mask during the photo shoot, only after shooting red dye number forty all over the hoodie he wore in the shoot, as to create the appearance of blood. He still has that hoodie. As for Tweek and David, they had their own masks, Tweek wearing a daredevil style cowl, Daredevil season two not being all that bad, despite having weaker writing due to its need to set up Defenders, but overall, having the same strong character as season one; the cowl covered his hair entirely, as well as his eyes, since anonymity was important to Tweek when thievery was involved. DAvid cared less, and wore an Oni mask. This was theorized to be the cause of the onies in his dream, but that was to happen at a much later date.  
In the aftermath of the release, Tweek Bros’ twitter account was made “Home of the Parodies” in its description, and as such, no major changes occurred, in either the pattern of people attending Tweek Bros or the number of people buying their tracks on bandcamp. In fact, despite their popularity, the rate of returns on their release was, while certainly depressing, by no means unprecedented. They were a small band, and as much hometown pride South Park had in their ability to release an EP, The Parodies were unknown outside of their school and their town. Which made them the average DIY band with the unusually high quality release, skilled singers and a few tracks made with more than just competence, but that natural talent the group had for sound.  
In the eyes of Tweek, the album had a rating of seven out of ten, which, he was aware the first person who has to love the work you make is yourself, but Tweek was very realistic about his abilities and the abilities of his friends. He accepted things like how neither of them knew how to utilize his skills on piano, and he had as much an issue knowing how to work with the group and their skills. Music is a collaborative work, and all of them were new to working with others, so there’s an imagined leniency, but for two years of working on an album together, Tweek couldn’t help but think they’d all need to dedicate themselves to the project being the best it could be while bussing tables. No he wasn’t, coffee shops use disposable cups, because they save the time and job creation bussing and cleaning cups would require, and Tweek claimed this is why the last coffee shop in town failed when Starbucks moved in; Tweek was doing something at Tweek Bros., and it was something that would require him to be in the customer’s area, because he was inside the store and about to move from from the customer’s side of the store to the employee’s, so let’s say that Tweek was currently wiping up the spiddly vomit of a baby, not a boss baby, but a business baby, which is similar to a boss baby, but hasn’t made it up the corporate ladder is still doggedly pursuing success in the only way he knows how, in that sort of Asian carp becoming the dragon sort of way, who needed the caffeine on his way to work, and they put the small mug on that little baby tray, and he was slurp-slurpin’ it up and soaking in the atmosphere, but then he threw it up, because he was a baby who shouldn’t be drinking caffeine, even if he was in the business, and Tweek was cleaning it up, apologizing to the customer, “We’re so terribly sorry about this business baby.”  
In a voice akin to that of Elmer Fudd, the business baby told off Tweek, “Well, you better be! You should know better than to sell coffee to a baby! It’s honestly a worse offense than taking my candy! Candy only costs me one dollar! I hope this employee is reprehensed for such an ignorant decision.” He started grumbling to himself, “I’m going to have to spend the rest of my break going home to change this shirt and have mama change-” His voice grew further lower than Tweek could hear as he rolled him and his mop bucket along towards the counter, where he saw Dogpoo manning the register. “Petuski, why’d you sell to a minor!”  
“He wanted it, and he said it wasn’t an illegal substance to any age,” Dogpoo tried defending himself.  
“He’s a business baby! They control your mind like they do the market! You gotta stay alert when you see one walk in,” Tweek took his mop bucket into the backroom. There were now consistently two employees working at all times, again, but Tweek still couldn’t take a day off. There were many times throughout the day where one person would just be doing nothing, as Tweek took on the work of two people. Take today, for example:  
Karen came in at three after school was out. I dunno know if I’ve described her appearance before, I can get pretty forgetful; For instance, Karen was a natural brunette, but as was so every once in a while, she would come in and it would be died. It appeared as though she had kept it to a simple black, at first, but upon closer observation, it revealed itself to have a faint, purple hue, a glossiness that couldn’t last for only so long. She walked in through the back door and saw Tweek draining the vomit water from the bucket. “So, how are things, out there?”  
“Petuski messed up another order, which resulted in an incident, and so, things are messy. How was school?”  
Karen pulled an apron off a coat hanger next to the door, tossing her ag on the ground and the apron around her neck, “Oh, it’s school. A kid got his foot run over this morning and we’re probably gonna have an assembly about safe driving, tomorrow, cause it was another student, buuut people were saying it might’ve been done with intent, so their complaining that the assembly isn’t necessary, and the friend of the person who got their foot run over said he needs a guard posted at his room.”  
Tweek held the door and waited for Karen, “Is the guy who ran him over on the run now!?” The both of them entered Tweek Bros’ front store.  
“Hm?” Karen turned back to Tweek with a look of confusion, “Oh, no, he’s receiving a fine for reckless driving, probably. I’d expect a loss of, like, five thousand dollars, at the most. But I guess that’ll only worsen the loss of life.”   
“Thank god, there are, like, four orders waitin’ to be made!” Dogpoo frantically called out in help to the fellow employees who walked in.  
Tweek moved right to picking up cups and finding who wanted what before moving to the cappuccino machine, “Why did you keep taking orders, then?”  
“That’s my job, isn’t it?”  
“Not when no one’s making the orders!” Tweek explained, aggravated. “Then, you have to keep the customers served.” Tweek slid a cafe mocha across the the counter into the hangry hands of a customer, calling out, “Christie!” And Christie quickly walked off.  
Orders went out next by Karen, then Tweek, again, and then Dogpoo managed to finish the drink he was working on. Dogpoo tried to return to the counter, but Tweek was standing there, taking orders, now, while karen kept on making them. “C’mon, man, let me get back to the counter.”  
“I-I-I think you need to take some time backing up Karen on getting drinks ready. I’ll take the counter for the day.”   
Dogpoo gave a sigh and turned away from Tweek with his shoulders hung. It was hard to tell if Tweek was angry or his usual anxiety-ridden self when he was yelling at his employees, and it certainly didn’t look good in front of the customers. Karen tried making Tweek aware of this, as left the drink for the customer on the counter and whispered in Tweek’s ear, “Don’t you think that belittled Dogpoo a bit?”  
“I know, I don’t mean to, I’m just stressed out.” Tweek explained quickly. Even then, he sounded angry over something. Karen stayed concerned.  
“If this is all just a matter of stress, you know you can take a day off. When was the last time that might have happened?”  
“Look, I’m happy I have a few extra hands around the kitchen, but two employees doesn’t make a full staff, and neither does three, especially when my guy on the register doesn’t know how to use the register.”  
Karen looked up from the coffee before her to Dogpoo working with his head hung low. “You know, if he doesn’t know how to work the register, the only way he can learn is by actually working the register.”  
“And what happens when he messes up another order?”  
“Then you show him what he did wrong, so he can learn not to make the mistake, again.”  
Tweek pressed his clenched fists down on the counter, contemplating. With a sigh, and a line of customers now moved from the queue to the waiting area, Tweek grabbed Dogpoo by the shoulder, “Alright, Petuski, get back on the register. I’ll get back to orders.”  
Dogpoo was all gitty, hopping back on the register, although there was no one there to register, at the moment, and Tweek and Karen got about making the orders as fast as they could.  
The mass of people waiting on orders shrunk down, and with a moment’s respite Tweek turned to Karen, “Hey, Karen, wha did you mean by ‘loss of life?’”  
“Hmm?” Karen’s face expressed the moment she remember what Tweek was talking about with a wide grin, “Oh, right! Yeah, that guy’s totally gonna die in the hospital.”  
“Oh my god! But isn’t that what the security guard is there for!?”  
“No, well, his friend said he ‘needed’ a security guard,” She added quotations around needed, “Not that he ‘had’ one. Such is South Park.”  
“Jesus christ,” Tweek got lost in thoughts of a murderer on the loose with blood lust. “Who was their friend?”  
“Huh? Oh, it was Red.”  
Tweek’s head swiveled at the name, “And you’re sure you don’t know who’s in the hospital!?”  
“Uhh, no.” Karen leaned into the baked goods case so there could just be a fun shot of her head looking down at a pastry, and Tweek looks like he’s coming out of the pastry off to the right as he’s biting his finger nails. Then Karen saw him out of the corner of her eye and said, “Oh, no, it’s definitely not Craig. I saw him today at lunch. We’re forming a little Community style group of rascals.”  
“Oh, okay.” Tweek turned to take the order of the waiting customer, but then wheeled back around hands squeezing at his hair, “Red’s still in high school!?”  
“Yeah. Tweek, you guys are the same age.”  
Tweek stared off at the far wall, “She looked like a senior when I was a freshman…”  
Karen joked, “Tweek, you still look like a freshman.”  
“Hey!” Tweek pointed at Karen like he was going to say something more. But Karen waited ten seconds patiently, only glancing at the customer once, who did manage to make eye contact with her, at which moment the woman shrugged and tried mouthing i don’t know. Then, Tweek just whirled back around and put on his retail manners, “What can I get you this evening?” All of this to highlight that Tweek was in bad shape at the moment.

Firkle was a complicated child. He couldn’t look in the mirror and ever be happy. Like many fourteen-fifteen? Does it matter if I don’t know? Like many high schoolers, Firkle was questioning what they knew about the world and what they knew about themself. What Firkle did know was where Ike Broflovski lived. He hadn’t been over in almost three years, though, and it was a matter of his own volition. So when he found himself sitting in a tree and looking down at his phone while leaning all the way back on a strong arm of the tree, except for his neck, which was horribly cocked out of alignment by the branch meeting the tree, reading off “Lampshading, addressing any story element that threatens the audience’s suspension of disbelief, whether an implausible plot device or blatant trope, by calling attention to it and then moving on. Ugh. That sounds like such a lazy form of humor.” He let his phone slip from his hand and fall into the soft, fresh snow below him. Then, Ike raised a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck up to his eye holes and looked into Ike’s window, where he saw Ike and Craig sitting together on his bed laughing together. Firkle tossed away the binoculars, too, at the sight of it, face all sour as they flew away, except they were attached to his neck, and the snap of the band stung. He then raised his head and hand to one another, and swung out of the tree. Firkle picked up his phone out of the snow and then went along his opposite of merry way. It’s a goth joke. Hodelodelodel 

By five o’clock, the rush at Tweak Bros was over, and things were as slow as they would be till closed, as people came in sparsely till late in the evening. Around five thirty two, one man came in with a briefcase, sitting himself down in at a table across the room. Tweek watched him closely as he walked, Karen picked up on it, and the two of them found the looking on as he laid the briefcase down flat upon the table. The two were quizzical to the papers he lifted just past the bin’s brim and tapped neatly in line, then placing them back down inside. “What do you think he’s doing?” Tweek asked in a hushed voice.  
“What kind of evil businesses things to evil businessmen usually do?” Karen posed.  
“Do you think his pages are rorschach tests that when you give your answers, your thoughts manifest themselves off the pages into reality?”  
“Naww, look at his suit. Since when do therapists dress business formal?”  
“They would if they were evil,” Dogpoo pointed out, wanting to hop into the conversation.  
“Good point, plu, my last therapist totally was wearing a suit everytime I came in. He’s come here to infest my business with invisible stands that’ll destroy the store, and when the authorities show up for questioning, since there’ll be no evidence of his stand’s existence, I’ll get blamed for it, and end up in another psych ward, then what’s gonna happen to this place?”  
“How many times have been in a psych ward?” Karen asked Tweek.  
“Three, but it’s not a big deal, it’s like a vacation where I can feel like everyone understands what I’m going through.”  
“Hm. Insightful,” Dogpoo tried jumping in, again.  
“Excuse me,” Tweek screeched in the face of the business man, who had stealthily made it to the front desk without being seen, just like everyone in this story.  
“Tweek!” Karen aggressively glared up at Tweek before turning to business man, “I’m sorry, sir. My boss doesn’t know how to teleport.”  
“Oh, it’s quite alright. You got quite the set of lungs on him,” the business man turned to Tweek, “You’re part of that Parodies group, right?” He asked  
Tweek went from anxious to wary, eyes slowly slanting as he turned his head from left to right. “What’s the interest?”  
“Hehe,” The man chuckled as he reached into the inner pocket of his blazer. He pulled out his wallet, keeping half of it stowed behind the jacket from the staff’s sight as he pulled out a business card tucked between two fingers. He offered it to Tweek, “I’m a manager. And I’m looking to form a band. That EP you released, it’s pretty hot. That was you on piano, right?”  
“Y-yeah?” Tweek kept up his guard as he took the business card from his hands.  
“You could add something to this band. I’m aware of your, umm…” The man looked Tweek up and down, which Karen took of note of, since Tweek was too distracted with the card, but Karen at least realized what he meant, “Well, you could be an excellent addition to a new kind of ‘boy band,’” He added the quotes. Tweek didn’t see those, either; Tweek had gathered a couple of things about the card, though. For one, the man’s name was Maxx Heil, because managers are evil, and I’m bad at names, he came from some label out of state, for two, and three, there was a fifty dollar bill folded around the card.  
Tweek held the bill in one hand and looked down at the card in the other before finally address Mr. Heil, “How did you find me here?”  
“Your bandcamp linked me to your twitter.” Tweek looked more confused at that, “And… Your twitter says this is the home of the Parodies?”  
“Really?” Maxx gave as shrug. “Well I’m sorry, Mr. Heil, but I’m not looking to leave the parodies at the moment. If you’d like to order a drink, I’d be more than happy to help, but I don’t mix business with side businesses,” and he crumpled up the fifty.  
Mr. Heil grew a smug smile across his face, “Fair enough. Make it medium black cup to go.”  
“They’re all made to go, we’re a coffee shop,” Tweek pointed out as he moved to fill a cup.  
Tweek placed the coffee between them, and the two glared at one another in a standoff, Heil still smiling. He removed three more ones from within his jacket and handed them to Tweek. Tweek handed them to Dogpoo at his right. He waited till he felt his palm fill with change and extended it to the customer. “Thank you,” and Maxx took the coins, dumping them into the tip jar. “Hold onto that card, why don’t’cha?” He said on his way out the door.”  
Tweek glared at the man as he walked out of sight of the glass. As soon as he couldn’t see him, he placed the business card flat of the table, then moved Dogpoo out of the way of the register, mumbling to himself “Who changed the store’s Twitter? I haven’t been able to use it since dad left?”  
Dogpoo tumbled over to Karen, turning around to face Tweek in line with Karen for framing convenience. “Umm…” Karen clasped her hands together behind her back. And lowered her gaze away from Tweek. “I might’ve had an old friend hack the account so David and I could fix it up,” she explained. “Are you mad?”  
“What!? No! That’s great, we now have that media coverage back under our control, I just would have liked to have known,” Tweek opened the register and stuffed the crinkled fifty in inside, pulling out two fifties and two fives. He put a twenty and a five in each hand and walked over to his two employees. “Here. I couldn’t give one of you the whole fifty and call that fair, so you both take half.”  
“What?” Dogpoo said shocked, “but it’s your bribe, we haven’t earned this!”  
“I know you haven’t,” Tweek told Dogpoo, placing a hand on his shoulder like he was a child, even though Tweek was shorter than him. “So consider yourself lucky, before I give the whole bonus to Karen.” Tweek pushed past the both of them onto the cafe floor. “I can’t take a bribe, anyway.”  
“Why not?” Karen asked, undignified for him. “You’re already broke, and you already took the bribe. Why pass off this deal? I thought the band was on the rocks, anyway?” I mean, people always say it’s on the rocks, but now, people are talking about how they release an EP just to break up, and-”  
“Stop telling me what people are saying!” Tweek cracked, snapping his head up to her. He lowered his head back to the ground and starting to sweep up the floors. “People don’t know the truth. They can only infurr. That’s how gossip works. Understand, the band might be going through a rough patch, but I trust those two more than I trust any parent of mine. We’re there for each other; care about each other, like the families we all need but somhow . We just need some time away from one another.” Tweek looked back up to Karen, “Besides, do you really think I’d trust money from a stranger?”

It wasn’t until closing that that became ironic, as Tweek closed up the shop around nine. He waved goodbye to both his employees, who helped him close and with both of their backs to him and maybe ten meters in between them, Tweak breathed a sigh of relief, just to turn and see a stereotypical lonely-looking goth on a park bench beneath the light of a streetlamp a reasonable fifteen feet behind him.   
Tweek walked up and joined the goth on the bench. “Evening, Pete. What are you doing out here, waiting for me to close so you can sneak in and sleep here while no one’s around?”  
“No. Wait, are you not back there, anymore?”   
Pete looked to Tweek, who gave a sigh as he explained, “Had to move out when the new employees started. Can’t let know that was a thing if they don’t know me.”   
“Where are you staying? Find an apartment?”  
“No, but I did learn there’s a motel on the other side of town.”  
“You don’t have a car. And that’s a love motel.”  
“I’m aware of both those things, and I’ve made my peace with them.” Tweek shivered in the cold. He never wore a jacket, like a fool.  
“Man, don’t you just wish it were Summer?” Pete asked, sarcastically.  
“You hate the Summer.”  
“So do you.” A silence fell, as Tweek let his head hang low. Peter stared at him, feigning himself to be above it, leaning back on the bench relaxed. But as the silence went on Peter glanced down, and with a deep gulp, “You know, I’m hanging out with Henrietta and Firkle tonight. If you wanted you could join.”  
“Hey, man, if you’re offering charity, than-”  
“I’m not,” Pete cut him off, “I’m offering to let you hang out with some real cool people. What do you say?”

Karen walked into the McCormick family home, opening the door as quietly as she could, looking to the living room just nearby their front door, where her mother wasn’t. The realization that her mother had moved off the couch signaled to Karen that things were happening in her home, but yet unclear as to what. She tiptoed into her home, since it was past eight, and her mother was very strict about things that made noise in her home. She was strict with a lot of weird things, Karen thought as she moved to her mother’s bedroom; as she opened the door to check for her mother within, only to see “Kevin.”  
Kevin sat on the edge of the far side of the mattress from Karen. He saw her over his shoulder, and darting his head down between his legs, Kevin lifted the mattress beneath his butt and shoved his hands beneath, before flopping the mattress down and standing up to turn to Karen. “Hey, sis.” He greeted her with a smile.   
Karen pinned her legs together and stood her ground with anxiety. “What are you doing here?”   
“Heh,” he chuckled as he walked across the mattress to his sister. “I came home hoping to find my family,” The word family echoed in the tiny room, which confused both Karen and Kevin, topping them both for a second to try and find a cause for such reverberations. Kevin shrugged it off and kept going, “and yet all I found was a bed for the night.”  
“Kenny’s letting you stay the night?”   
“Yup. Then, I guess I’ll be back on my way.”  
“Hm. Well… Good to see you, then.”  
Karen turned herself back to the door. Kevin quickly stood, “Woah, woah, woah, that’s all?”  
Karen looked back over her shoulder at her eldest brother with a sigh. “Kevin, you decided you didn’t want to be a part of our family.”  
“Wha-” Kevin reached both arms out to Karen, but it’s hard to muster an argument to such an accusation. So he slowly got down on both knees and held arms at his sides as he looked up at his sister, “Karen. I’m sorry about what happened, three years ago. We’re family. We need to look out for each other. Otherwise, who will? And I wasn’t there for you, then. But I’m here. Now. And I need someone who can look out for me. Please? PLease, forgive me?” 

Kenny walked into the kitchen to see karen had prepared coffee and eggs. She sat at the table eating her breakfast. Kenny moved to the coffee pot and filled himself a mug before taking a seat across the table. Kenny ate a scoop of eggs. And scratched at the back of his head. He glanced up at Karen. He’d seen her angry at mom and dad like this before, but never at him. Something had happened to the troubled duet of the indomitable McCormicks. Kenny looked down at the plate of eggs, scraping his fork through them. “Thanks for breakfast,” Kenny told her in a low-tone, a sense of shame carried over in his lack of eye contact.  
Karen didn’t respond. She wouldn’t make eye contact  
Kenny raised his head to look at her. He cleared his throat, “Did you see Kevin last night?”   
Kenny stared at Karen for a few seconds hoping for a response before turning his head back to his eggs. Karen folded her arms, sigh “Yeah.” sigh, again, “I talked to him.”  
Kenny glanced up before turning attention back to attention back to the eggs. He took a deep inhale and an exasperated sigh. Karen took a moment before exhaling, “Huh.”   
Kenny sucked up air, and flapped wind out through his lips, which if were attempted to be onomatopoeia-ized, would be either a series of ps or bs. And so, the two of them went, on sighing at one another for a while over breakfast, never actually talking.   
The two of them put their dishes in the sink and headed for the door. Carol McCormick was on the couch when they walked by. In an uncharacteristically lively fashion, Carol was awoken by the sound of their walking.  
There were a couple things about Carol McCormick that should be understood. She was a bit crushed by the direction of her life, and as many who looked to escape from those troubles, had turned to the bottle. And she’d been blindsided by the loss of a husband and a child. Her relationship with what was left of her family after both those events was greatly weakened by the alcoholism she was developing in her depression, but they weren’t the ones who had chosen to withdraw, so there was nothing they could do about it. And so, they moved onto protecting each other, where the indomitability came from.   
So, as they walked by, Carol raised her head suddenly and saw them heading towards the door. She spoke with an exhausted drawl, “Where are you kids doin’ up so early?”   
“Do you mean what?” Karen asked, flipping her hair over her shoulder, keeping a step behind Kenny on their way out.  
“Someone needs to earn money, around here,” Kenny couldn’t help but poke the old bear’s eyes.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Carol snapped her words into formation, aware of the accusation in Kenny’s comment. This was another thing that should be aware of Carol. She was the member of this family with the most pride. This had been true long before the alcohol, and from what the McCormick duo knew of their grandparents, had been since before she’d met dad.   
“We have to get to school, mom,” Karen gave what sounded like a proper answer without exactly lying. An equally important step in poking the bear, making it think it was just a bug. I keep stretching for metaphors and analogies.   
Carol was left alone in the house with a using asshole, still asleep in her room, an unwitting folly on the part of Kenny and Karen.


End file.
